


Heroes Never Die

by pastelwitchling



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Alex Manes & Kyle Valenti Friendship, Alex has powers, M/M, Malex, Not Maria DeLuca Friendly, and unrequited love from Mr. Jones's end, dark!Alex, the Mr. Jones and Alex relationship is more a collaboration
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-15 14:08:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 34,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29065599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pastelwitchling/pseuds/pastelwitchling
Summary: Alex suspects that an interaction from his past has given him powers that are now spiraling out of control and destroying Roswell, but no one believes he’s responsible. After failing to get the help of the people he loves, Alex must turn to an enemy for guidance.
Relationships: Alex Manes & Mr. Jones, Michael Guerin & Alex Manes, Michael Guerin/Alex Manes
Comments: 29
Kudos: 93





	1. The Reflection in the Mirror

**Author's Note:**

> It's finally here! I will be constantly posting more fluff and smut pieces in between these chapter updates (because this is some dark stuff, and I need a breather every now and then), and you can follow my tumblr, twitter, and IG linked below for updates on those, as well as smaller snippets that I will sometimes jot down and post there.  
> This took a LOT of work, so if you liked it even a little bit, please consider commenting and sharing as it makes the world of a difference to a writer ❤

Alex woke to arguing. Even at ten years old, he’d recognized the screams as something that happened often.

“Just stay in your room,” Gregory had told him with a trembling attempt at a smile one night, when the fights got particularly loud and even his older brother couldn’t keep the tears from rising to the surface. “Stay in your room and don’t come out. Okay?”

And for his brother, Alex had simply nodded, though this night he couldn’t just stay in bed. So he’d swung his scrawny little legs over the edge, his teddy bear in his arms and his royal-blue blankie trailing behind him. He reached up to the door handle and opened it, the yellow light of the corridor flooding in.

He was cold and thirsty and hot and nauseous all at the same time. He felt weird, like above the shouts in the living room, there was a softer voice, alluring and warm, singing to him, asking him to come closer.

_But_ , Alex thought as his parents’ voices rose, _they’re fighting again . . ._

_Don’t be afraid,_ the voice seemed to say, its words melodic and promising, _I’ll protect you. No one will lay a finger on you . . ._

Alex’s legs seemed to move on their own, urging him forward.

“You shouldn’t have opened it!” his father yelled. “You shouldn’t have gone near it!”

“Jim Valenti warned me you’d taken something you weren’t supposed to, Jesse!”

His father glared. “Why are you listening to him instead of your husband?”

“He was afraid for this family. Clearly more afraid than _you_ are!”

“Valenti’s a paranoid old man,” Jesse said ruthlessly. “He’s been trying to take that piece from me for weeks! I couldn’t leave it with him!”

She scoffed. “ _He’s_ paranoid?!”

“He’ll pay for his little intrusions,” Jesse promised.

“Listen to yourself!” his mother demanded. “Who could blame Jim for wanting to warn us, that thing isn’t from here! I’ve never seen symbols like that, I don’t trust it!”

“You’re delusional,” he growled. “I know what I’m doing!”

“I don’t think you do! Bringing it to the house?! Where _our children_ are?!”

“I’m not the one who brought it out into the open! You know better than to go near my work! You didn’t touch it, did you? _Did you_?!”

“No, I didn’t touch it!”

“Why would you open the damn bag in the first place? Why?!”

“Because!” his mother snapped. “I-It was calling to me, there’s something not right about that . . . that . . .” She sighed shakily. “Jesse, what _is_ it? What’re you doing out in Caulfield?”

“I told you –”

“Go ahead!” she cut him off. “Lie to me again!”

His father turned silent for a moment. Alex edged closer into the living room, peeking at his parents from behind the corner. He saw Jesse glare at Mindy before he turned around with a huff, running a hand through his short hair.

“You had no right to go through my things.”

“You had no right to bring it here! _Look at it_!”

Alex tried to. His mother’s dark brown hair fell around her shoulders, her brown, teary eyes narrowed at her husband as if struggling to see him at all. She pointed at something that sat on the entryway table, the duffel bag that it had been hidden in laid open, revealing some kind of thick . . . was that glass?

“I can’t take this anymore, Jesse,” his mother was saying as Alex inched closer to the strange, colorful toy. “I don’t know who you’ve become, but it’s not the man I married.”

“Be careful what you say next, Mindy,” his father warned. “We’ve had this discussion before, and we’ve agreed that my work is important –”

“No, you told me you were trying to help people. This is not helping people! That you would risk your own children –”

“Don’t bring the boys into this! There would be no risk if you hadn’t been meddling with things that you don’t understand!”

“I told you,” his mother said, hurt, “I didn’t know what I was doing! It was like I was . . . compelled!”

“Then you _do_ get it! You can see the unknown and hostile forces at work here –”

“All I see is that you lied to me, and something else is going on that you’re not telling me about. Who knows what this thing could do . . .”

But their voices faded to background noise, like Alex was underwater. He was just tall enough to see over the entryway table, his eyes wide on the beautiful gold and purple and pink of the glass, rippling and blending together like watercolors. There were glowing symbols on the surface, symbols that made no sense to Alex. But then, maybe they shouldn’t. Maybe they’d be clearer when he was older. All he knew was that this toy was prettier than anything he’d ever seen.

The singsong voice became louder in his ears, urging him to touch.

_You want to be stronger, don’t you?_ it said. _To stop the fighting? Stop all of the noise? That’s what you want, isn’t it? Silence at last? I can give you that power . . ._

Alex didn’t think he wanted power, didn’t think he cared about it much. But . . .

He looked back over at his parents, still screaming at each other, eyes filled with a hatred and betrayal that Alex didn’t think loving parents should have. He wanted them to be happy. He wanted the yelling to stop. He wanted his father to read them bedtime stories again and tuck them in. He wanted his mom to smile with her whole heart and sing in the kitchen like she used to do. He wanted to reassure his brothers that he could keep them safe, too.

_Anything you want,_ the pretty toy promised, _whatever your battle, you will have the power to win . . ._

Alex’s teddy bear and blankie fell from his arms. He reached up with his small fingers. The symbols glowed brighter the closer he came. It was choosing him, he could tell. It had been waiting for him. He had no idea what it would do exactly, but it wanted to help him. He felt an odd tingling in the base of his spine, a small voice muttering, _This is a bad idea . . ._

But his parents were still yelling, and his brothers were still afraid, and Alex was too small and weak to fix any of it. Maybe with this he could help. Maybe he could make it all better. Maybe winning was what it took to save everyone he loved.

He could feel the heat of the glass against his skin, an echoing pulse that matched his own racing heart, as if the piece was alive. As if it was part of him.

Before he touched the rippling surface, his parents’ voices broke through the haze of his thoughts, of the singsong, melodic voice promising him everything would be okay now.

“ALEX!” his mother screamed.

“NO!”

But it was too late. Alex touched the glass, felt something like lightning shoot up his arm and throughout his body, and sat up in his bed in a cold sweat.

His hand instinctively reached for his lamp, and the room was instantly flooded with warm, golden light. Alex gasped. His closet was thrown wide open, his clothes and books tossed all over the floor, like a hurricane had destroyed everything in the middle of the night.

Alex rubbed his eyes. Had he been sleepwalking? Had he done this last night when he’d come back from work, not realizing the mess he’d caused? He slumped against his headboard. With the weeks he’d been having, it was more than possible. He put his hand on his chest, his heart racing.

_Just a dream,_ he thought. Just a dream that he’d been having for the past two months, every night without a single change in any of the details, but _just a dream_ , nonetheless.

Alex grabbed his phone off the nightstand and checked the time. Four in the morning. It was too late to go back to sleep now, and it would only leave him that much more exhausted for the day if he tried.

With a weary sigh, Alex threw the blanket back, swung his leg off the edge of the bed, and reached for his crutches.

He turned on the white light of his kitchen, trudging inside and taking a seat at the counter. He reached for his phone, looking through his messages. He had a few from his brothers, more from his team’s group chat, and a missed call from Liz. Alex mindlessly tapped the edge of his phone.

Didn’t Michael usually have trouble sleeping around this time, too? Wouldn’t he be tinkering away in his bunker? Did he leave his phone in his airstream? Was he even thinking about Alex? Had he thought about calling him? Was he also holding his phone, expecting some kind of message from Alex, a sign that he was thinking of him, too?

“Stupid,” he muttered, his phone clattering onto the table.

He pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes, exhaling shakily, and turned to his coffee machine. It was time to get to work.

*

Michael stared at his phone as it lay on the worktable across from him. He was sitting on the only stool there, twirling a pencil in his hands, his work behind him lay forgotten.

He picked up his phone, thought better of it, and put it back down. Alex was asleep. He had to be, right? Though Michael couldn’t remember the last time he’d ever actually _seen_ the airman sleep . . .

“No, no,” he said, shaking his head. If Alex _was_ asleep, then it was a rarity and he didn’t want to wake him. He moved to his feet, his back to his phone. He looked over the clutter of papers and calculations, unseeing, his mind lingering on the screen behind him.

Finally, and unable to take it anymore, Michael looked back to his phone, his hands resting on either side of it. He stared at the black screen, waiting for a message to come up, a call to come in. It had happened once before, just _once_. Michael had been tinkering in his bunker, unable to sleep because of some reason or other, and was startled by his phone buzzing.

He’d seen Alex’s name, dreaded the worst, and had already been halfway up the ladder as he’d picked up the call.

“Alex? What’s wrong? Where are you?”

“Uh – bed,” Alex had said hoarsely. “Sorry, I – I couldn’t sleep. Thought maybe you’d be up.”

Michael had stilled on the rungs, had held his breath, terrified he’d misheard. But then Alex’s uncertain voice came through again.

“Guerin?”

“Yeah,” Michael had quickly said. “But – uh – you’re – you’re okay?”

Alex had hummed, then he’d turned silent. Michael could imagine him picking at his blanket, not knowing what to say or if he was allowed to say it, and he’d been eager to fill in the silence.

So he’d started talking. About everything and nothing. And Alex had listened, responding every so often, his voice softening with every word, as if the relief of being given Michael’s attention was very slowly setting in. Michael had even managed to make him laugh. He’d needed to sit down at the sound in his ear.

They hadn’t talked about it the next day, but Alex had caught Michael’s eyes and smiled softly, had lingered at Michael’s side seconds longer than he’d needed to, had let Michael stare at him without looking away or making an excuse to leave.

And Michael wanted more of it. So he stared at his phone, his bones beginning to vibrate as he urged the screen to light up with Alex’s name.

“Call,” he muttered. “Call, call, _call_.” But no one did. Michael’s phone remained dark, and he glumly turned back to work, facing the facts that Alex just wouldn’t be looking to him tonight for comfort.

*

By Alex’s fourth refill, the morning sunlight was starting to pour in. He looked away from his screen, rubbing his burning eyes. He pushed his computer aside and rested his head on his arms, looking out his window onto the desert plain.

His mind kept drifting back to the nightmare, replaying the screams, his parents’ angry faces, and, above it all, the spaceship piece’s sound. He knew now that that’s what it was, but he’d never imagined it with a voice before.

He thought about the first time he’d found the piece, hidden behind a panel in the bunker underneath his cabin. He’d felt a strange pull then, something tugging at the pit of his stomach that he couldn’t understand. He’d followed the clues, he’d unraveled the mystery as he’d been used to doing his entire life, but there had been more to it. It had been a feeling, like that piece had been . . . waiting for him.

_CRASH!_

Alex jumped. The cup he’d been drinking from was suddenly in small pieces at the opposite end of the kitchen, the coffee staining the cabinet. Like someone had thrown it. Alex frowned down at his hands. Had he knocked his mug over? But even if he had, the mess should’ve been at his feet, not the other end of the room. So how did . . .

Alex groaned into his palms. This sort of thing had been happening a lot lately. Was his PTSD just acting up again?

_Riiiiiiing! Riiiiiiing!_

Alex was yanked out of his thoughts, his phone vibrating on the counter. For a split second, he imagined seeing Michael’s name on the screen. Then he saw Isobel’s instead, and his shoulders fell. He sighed shakily, rubbing the rest of the exhaustion from his eyes.

“Yeah?” he answered.

“Why’d we agree to meet up this early?” Isobel demanded in lieu of a greeting.

Alex rested his chin on his palm. “Because Max and I both have work later and won’t be available until after midnight?” he reminded her. She groaned, and the corner of his lips tugged upward.

“Well, we’re at the Crashdown,” she said. “When are you getting here?”

“Ten minutes,” he said, reaching for his crutches.

“Okay, I’ll order for you.”

“Uh – Isobel, I really don’t like it when other people –”

“No, my taste is amazing, it’s fine,” she dismissed. “We’re waiting, Manes. A word of warning; do not keep me waiting long.”

And the call hung up. Alex couldn’t help but chuckle. If only he and Michael could be this blatantly honest with each other. So much would be different.

*

Michael tapped the table surface, head tilted over the customers coming in and out. Isobel slapped his arm.

“Would you stop?” she said. “He’ll be here in a minute.”

Michael did not look away from the door. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Max came to join their table, two plates in each hand, and a cup of what smelled like coffee tucked under his arm. “You still looking for Alex?” he sat down across from them. “He just called, said he was almost here.”

Michael frowned. “Why’s he calling you?”

Max held his hands up in defense, and Isobel sighed, “You’re pathetic.”

The bell above the door jingled and Michael’s eyes snapped to it. He straightened as Alex walked in, dusting the snow off his jacket. Arturo called out to him fondly, and Alex smiled.

Michael swallowed. “He looks good.”

“What?” Isobel blinked.

“What?”

“Hey,” Alex said, taking the empty seat beside Max, right across from Michael.

Max offered Alex the Styrofoam cup. “Coffee?”

Alex’s shoulders slumped, his expression colored in relief. “I love you,” he said easily, taking the drink. Max laughed, and Isobel smiled, amused, but Michael felt a painful sting in his chest. He knew it was stupid to be jealous, but Alex had never said those words to him, not even as a joke. The closest he’d ever come was . . .

_“That I loved you.”_

He pursed his lips and looked away.

“Okay,” Alex said, his hands curled around the cup, “I have about half an hour before I have to go. Has he . . . said anything yet?”

Max shook his head. “He’s not exactly thrilled about being kept prisoner.”

Isobel scoffed. “Then he shouldn’t have tried to kill us when we found him.”

“He stays on the pollen until we can figure out what to do with him,” Michael said.

“Like what?” Alex said, and looked around before he leaned in, his voice quiet. “What, you mean kill him? You can’t do that, he’s one of you.”

“Alex,” Michael said, “we might not have a choice.”

“No, I agree with Alex,” Max said. “We don’t know anything about him, what if he can tell us more about what happened to our parents? Our _planet_?” Max winced and rubbed his eyes. “God, did I just say that?”

“Far as I’m concerned,” Michael said, “he’s the reason our ship crashed in the first place –”

“And the reason we met,” Alex said, and Michael fell silent. “I’m sorry, I can’t hate him for it. And the only person who we know for a fact is responsible for any of this is a Manes.”

Michael faltered. “Private –”

“Until we can get him to talk, everything else is . . . guesswork.”

“He tried to _kill_ us,” Michael said.

“You’d just found him after a long period of isolation,” Alex defended. “Maybe he was just as freaked out as you guys.” At Michael’s look, he said, “I’m not saying it’s ideal, I’m just saying that we don’t know his side of it yet.”

“I don’t like it,” Isobel confessed. “How . . . how much he looks like –”

“He’s not me,” Max reassured her. “He has nothing to do with me.”

“But there’s a reason you guys look the same, right?” Michael said. “Maybe he knows, maybe we can force him to tell us.”

“Or _maybe_ ,” Alex said, “we can just try talking to him. No threats, just _talking_. Look, I spent all night studying the area where you guys found him, and plant life there is nearly nonexistent. Far as I can tell, he’d been using that energy to stay alive all these years.”

Michael frowned. “Why were you up all night?”

Alex waved a dismissive hand, avoiding Michael’s eyes. “I couldn’t sleep. My point is that he’s weak. He’s no threat to anyone, not now.”

Max sighed. “I do want to know why we look alike. What if we’re . . . brothers or something? Or what if I’m a clone?”

“Your energy signatures are different,” Alex reassured him kindly. Michael could see the tension melt away from Max’s shoulders immediately, like he knew he could trust Alex’s judgment. And there it was again. That unreasonable jealousy.

Michael huffed a chuckle, exasperated. “Private, are you kidding me? You still wanna find the good in this guy? After everything he did?”

“We don’t know what he did, Guerin,” Alex tried. “I’m not saying we should trust him, but he’s been trapped down in those caves for _decades_. We won’t get anywhere treating him like a villain. He’s been alone all that time and –”

“And what?” Michael demanded, the words pouring out of him before he could realize what he was saying. “You sympathize because you come from a long line of villains?”

“ _Michael_ ,” Isobel scolded, but Alex’s dark, angry eyes were punishment enough.

Michael stared, horrified as what he’d said repeated in his own ears. “A-Alex,” he tried, “I –”

Alex looked to Max, thoroughly dismissing Michael. “I want to talk to him,” he said steadily. “Tonight. He was there when my grandfather ordered an attack on the spaceship. At the very least, seeing another Manes could make him angry enough to confess to something he never meant to.”

Max glanced at Michael, but Michael was staring at Alex. “Okay,” Max said. “You know where the caves are, right? I can meet you there.”

Alex nodded. “Great,” he said. His phone buzzed and he pulled it out of his pocket, He frowned at the screen. “I’ve gotta go. I’ll text you when I leave the base.”

Michael was starting to stand, too. “I – I can come with you –”

“I’d rather just do it with Max,” Alex said edgily, putting his phone away and turning up his collar against the wind. “It’ll be easier that way.” His glare was sharp, like he wanted this to hurt. It was working.

Without another word, Alex was gone. Michael watched him, unwilling to sit down until Alex got into his car and faded from view. Neither of his siblings said anything for a while. Then –

“Michael,” Max sighed, “I’m sorry, man. Look, I’ll keep him safe –”

“I’m coming to those caves,” Michael said, his eyes still on the corner where Alex had turned. “You think I’d leave Alex without protection?”

Max and Isobel glanced at each other, the concern evident. But all Michael could see was Alex’s resignation, as if he’d expected Michael to call him a villain. All he could hear was Alex dismissing his sleepless night, and the fact that he hadn’t called Michael. His siblings may not have noticed it, but Michael was sure of one thing; something was wrong with Alex, and if he didn’t stay close, he’d never know what it was.

“Michael,” Isobel said softly, “Max is going to be there, he’ll protect –”

“Alex needs _me_ ,” Michael cut her off. “I’m not leaving him.” He locked eyes with his brother, unwavering, and said, “I’m coming whether he wants me to or not.”

*

Alex was distracted. A restless night, a heavy weight on his chest, and the promise of talking to what was most likely a psychotic alien in a cave did that to a man.

And it was because of that, and absolutely _not_ because of Michael’s comments at the Crashdown, that Alex had been beating one of the punching bags in the training room senseless the past hour.

“Whoa, _whoa_ ,” someone laughed. Alex looked up, panting, to find his blonde teammate, Jackson, smiling. “If that bag isn’t talking now, it never will.”

Alex huffed, pushing aside his sweaty bangs. “Funny.”

He put his hands on his hips and tilted his head at Alex as if studying him. “I thought you looked off at the computers,” he said.

“I did not.”

“Your eye kept twitching.”

“You are making that up.”

Jackson came around the punching bag to hold it steady, a silent invitation. Alex readied his stance and kept punching. “You wanna tell me what’s up?”

“Not really,” Alex said.

“Cap, you’re not okay,” Jackson insisted, and behind his smile, Alex could see something akin to concern. “You’re never _not_ okay. Your mind’s a million places at once, and it’s throwing people off.”

Alex stopped. “It is?”

“W-Well, you know,” Jackson mumbled, his cheeks tainted pink. “The more observant of us.”

Alex’s shoulders slumped. “You’ve gotta stop watching me when you’re supposed to be working, buddy.”

Jackson raised his chin proudly. “I can neither confirm nor deny these implications. Though if I _was_ going to confirm anything, I would say that I had every right to watch you because you’re a very hot man, and I can only be so strong.”

Alex scoffed, a smile breaking out across his lips despite himself. “You’re an idiot.”

“Yes, I am.” He sighed. “And your eye’s twitching again.”

“Damn it!” Alex turned away, rubbing his face roughly. He could feel Jackson come up behind him and put a hand on his shoulder. He said nothing, letting the choice to talk be Alex’s.

Finally, and unable to take the silence of the outside world and the rush of his own thoughts, Alex said, “What do you do . . . when someone you care about . . . can only see the bad in you?”

He turned to find Jackson’s lips pursed, considering. Then his friend smiled grimly. “Do you remember after our first op? The things I said? The things I . . . I almost did?”

Alex frowned. “Jackson –”

“It tore me up from the inside,” Jackson went on, a rare darkness to his usually bright blue eyes. “It still does. And I could tell that it was tearing you up, too.” He scoffed, shaking his head. “But then you held my face, you brought me back to earth, and looked at me like you could only see the good. Like I was still good.”

“You _are_ ,” Alex insisted, and the tension in his chest eased as Jackson’s smile turned more genuine, more fond.

“And I believed you,” he shrugged a shoulder. “Still do. So what do you do, Cap? You look for someone who can still see the good.”

Alex considered these words, and was just beginning to smile when he heard a slow _craaaaack_ behind him. Jackson’s eyes focused on something over his shoulder, his brows furrowing.

“What the hell . . .?” he muttered, and Alex followed his gaze.

There was a crack forming along the gray wall as they watched, like someone on the inside was trying to break out.

The weird weight on Alex’s chest turned heavier. He exhaled slowly, hoping to expel it, and the invisible force stopped carving into the walls.

Jackson scoffed, shaking his head. “They really need to get some upgrades in here,” he said. “This place is falling apart.”

“Yeah,” Alex muttered, “it is.” But he couldn’t help but feel a strange sense of responsibility for what had happened. His eyes stayed on the gaping crack, as if its little act of destruction had been in obedience to Alex’s unwitting orders.

That night, Alex drove out into the desert in silence, the stars in the black sky his only company. He tried not to think too much of what Michael had said at the diner. He made remarks like that all the time. It was just because he was angry, and he said crap he didn’t mean when he was angry. He saw beyond Alex’s family, he saw the good in Alex. He trusted Alex.

Alex was _sure_ of that.

When he pulled up to the caves and found not only Max, but Michael sitting on his truck bench, something in his stomach unclenched.

“Thank God,” he muttered.

When he stepped out, Michael smirked like he was ready to be told off. Alex imagined him insisting to come along, and his heart soared at the thought. He wanted to wipe that concealed doubt from Michael’s face completely.

“You gonna yell at me, Private?” Michael said as he jumped down and put the bench up. Alex noticed he was avoiding his eyes.

But Alex was so relieved that he forgot Max was there, forgot that they didn’t do this kind of thing, and he leaned into Michael’s space and kissed his cheek.

He heard Michael gasp, his arm coming up instinctively around his waist. “I’m glad you’re here,” he murmured against the shell of his ear before he pulled back.

Michael’s eyes were on Alex’s lips, half-lidded. “Y-Yeah,” he said. “I couldn’t leave you.”

Alex let himself grip Michael’s jacket tightly for a second. He knew Michael saw the good in him. He forced himself to let go, and gave him a look that was a lot more reassuring than he felt.

“You ready?” Max asked, his eyes on the cave’s entrance. As if he felt the strange pull, too. Alex nodded, and followed, Michael at his heels.

The cave was freezing, the rocky surface already hell on Alex’s leg, but he managed to keep steady. The deeper into the cave they got, the more the dark seemed to bear down on them and their flashlights. Alex felt Michael’s fingers graze his own, and a shudder ran up his arm and through his body.

Soon the darkness began to lift, the light a faint gold and pink and purple. Alex’s eyes narrowed as they came up to the wall that had once stood there, keeping Mr. Jones in. Now only jagged edges stood against the rocks, emitting the same colorful glow as the spaceship piece Alex had once found in his bunker.

Alex felt Michael’s hand slide up his back as they ducked to avoid a particularly sharp piece over their heads, the protection unnecessary but making Alex’s heart flutter anyway.

Then he saw him. Sitting in a chair deep in the cavern where the light just barely touched him was the Max-lookalike, his wrists and ankles chained to the armrests and legs.

Mr. Jones looked up through his dark locks, and grinned lazily. His body was hunched over in exhaustion and discomfort, his eyes squinted with dark circles, his cheeks hollow. He had some worn-in jeans and a thin shirt on that couldn’t have been doing much to keep him warm. But his dark eyes glinted with amusement as they rested on Alex.

“Howdy, partner,” he said hoarsely. “I haven’t seen _you_ here in a bit.”

“Yeah,” Alex muttered. “Good to see you, too.”

“You look nice,” he said, tilting his head. “ _Real_ nice.”

“Okay,” Michael fumed, “I’m gonna kill him now.”

Alex held up a hand, keeping him back. Despite Mr. Jones’s condition, he didn’t so much as flinch. He approached him.

“Don’t get too close, Alex,” Max warned.

Mr. Jones chuckled and went off into a fit of coughs. “He’s right, Alex,” he said. “Wouldn’t want the dangerous strange alien to get you. ‘Specially since I ain’t got no hands, and my powers don’t work. What was that crap you injected into me anyway?”

“Like we’re giving you any information about anything,” Michael said.

Mr. Jones whistled low in his throat. “You that scared of me, brother?”

Michael took a step towards him until Alex warned, “ _Guerin_.”

Mr. Jones smirked. “Listen to your captain, Michael.” Michael looked like he wanted to kill Mr. Jones with his bare hands, but Mr. Jones’s eyes were on Alex. “You are a captain, aren’t you? Air Force man.”

Alex was unfazed. “Is that supposed to be your thing? Reading minds?”

“Me?” he scoffed. “No. No, but you Manes Men are a “met one, met ‘em all” kinda family. Soldiers.”

Alex’s lips pursed. “So a Manes Man. That’s who you saw when your spaceship crashed?”

He shrugged. “Interesting bunch, you Manes.”

“That’s one word for it.”

“But you don’t think so,” Mr. Jones’s smile widened. “Hoo boy, I knew I liked you.”

“ _Alex_ ,” Michael said through grit teeth, but Alex kept his eyes on Mr. Jones. He hoped Max was keeping tight hold of his brother.

“My family’s values don’t exactly align with mine,” Alex said, crossing his arms. “At least not most of them.”

He hummed. “You’re _different_ ,” he said. “I can tell. Like that other one. What was his name? He was handsome, too.”

“Tripp,” Alex said, trying not to seem eager that someone might’ve been able to tell him more about his relative. “You knew my great uncle?”

Mr. Jones shrugged a shoulder and winced at the movement. “Tried to save us. Couldn’t, of course. Too many of us, _way_ too many of them, and one by one, they hunted us down.”

“Then explain _this_ ,” Max came forward, holding up a newspaper that dated several years back. It was the picture of Michael’s mom at the fair, a hand on her shoulder.

“If you were taken in with the others,” Michael said, “how were you here? And I swear, if you try to give us some crap story about how this isn’t you, the luxury treatment –” he gestured at Mr. Jones’s poor state “—stops now.”

Mr. Jones’s eyes darkened at the photograph, but he said nothing.

“This picture means something to you,” Alex observed. “It’s important.”

Mr. Jones’s eyes came into focus as they settled on Alex again. The corner of his lips quirked up. “You’re a lot more focused than your granddaddy was.”

“What do you mean?”

“He was always thinking too big, that one. Kept missing the details.”

“And the details matter,” Alex concluded.

Mr. Jones smiled in earnest, like after a long search, he finally found what he was looking for. “Oh, I _do_ like you.”

Alex could feel the cave walls trembling slightly. “ _Michael_ ,” he heard Max say, but he kept his attention on the alien in front of him. He slowly moved to kneel on his good leg, peering up into Mr. Jones’s dark eyes. He looked so much like Max, but also nothing like him at all.

“What’s with the picture?”

Mr. Jones’s smile tightened. “Why don’t I ask you something?”

Alex raised a brow. “Like what?”

“Alex, don’t tell him anything –” Michael started to say when Mr. Jones suddenly asked –

“Did it sound like you thought it would?”

The cave was silent for a long minute. Alex’s brows furrowed.

“What?”

“The piece,” Mr. Jones said, like he’d created a special mystery for Alex to solve and wanted to see if he could figure it out. “Does it sound like you thought it would? Very soothing, isn’t it?”

Alex’s face fell, the memory of his dream – the same dream he’d been having for weeks – flashing at the forefront of his mind.

“Alex?” Michael asked. “What’s he talking about?”

“How’d you know about that?” Alex asked, ignoring the cowboy’s question.

“About what?” Max insisted. “Alex, what’s he saying?”

“You gonna tell ‘em, Alex? Tell ‘em about all the weird stuff that’s been goin’ on?” Mr. Jones’s smile widened. “Or are you afraid they won’t look at you the same?”

“ _Shut up_ ,” Michael hissed. “Alex,” he grabbed his arm, “what’s going on? What weird stuff?”

Alex shook his head at Mr. Jones, trying to crack whatever code he’d created. “You’re supposed to be incapacitated, how do you know all of this?”

His smile widened. “I told you, Manes. I _like_ you. And I’ve been waiting for you for a long time.”

“That’s it,” Michael demanded. “Alex, don’t say another word to him.”

“Yeah,” Max said, glaring at Mr. Jones, “we’re leaving.”

“Come on,” Michael said, and tugged at Alex’s arm. “Alex, _come on_.”

“Y-Yeah,” Alex muttered, unable to look away from Mr. Jones.

As he turned and left, Mr. Jones called out, “Oh and Alex! Try to get some sleep tonight!”

As soon as they were out of the caves, the headlights of their cars bright in their faces, Michael said, “You’re never going back in there.”

“Guerin –”

“ _Alex_ –”

“You don’t even know what he was talking about.”

“What _was_ he talking about?” Max asked. “All that stuff about ‘it’ sounding like you thought it would and ‘weird stuff,’ I – what weird stuff, Alex?”

Alex exhaled shakily, rubbing the nape of his neck. “I swear, I never really thought any of it meant anything, but now . . . ever since you guys told us about Mr. Jones, things have kind of been . . . breaking around me.”

Michael frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I – I mean,” Alex huffed, frustrated at being unable to get the words out. “I mean cracks in walls and cups smashing against cabinets and stuff moving around on its own and – and –”

“Why didn’t you mention any of this before?” Michael said. “We’ve had Mr. Jones for two months!”

“I told you,” Alex said, “I didn’t think anything of it.”

“Stuff goes crashing into walls around you, and you don’t think anything of it?!”

“Hey,” Alex snapped. “I’ve had blackouts since I joined the military. You get nightmares in living daylight, and everything around you just turns into a blur, and it’s scary _all_ _the time_ , okay?” Michael’s mouth clamped shut. “So if something falls over or breaks, I just . . . I assume I wasn’t paying attention, try not to get hung up on it too much, and move on.”

Michael said nothing, but searched Alex’s face in that silent, mysterious way he always did. Alex couldn’t tell what he was thinking, and it made him want to scream. If Michael had anything to say, couldn’t he just say it? If he wanted to hold Alex’s hand or cup his cheek or brush his bangs back, couldn’t he just do it? If Alex was willing to lower his walls and tell Michael that he was always so afraid, couldn’t Michael lower a single one and openly care about him?

_He openly cared for Maria_ , a voice taunted, and it made Alex’s eye twitch. _Maybe he just doesn’t really care about what happens to you._

Alex turned away, pressing the heel of his palm to his eye to keep it from flinching.

“Alex, that sounds like Michael’s telekinesis,” Max said, brows furrowed. “But Michael’s powers don’t break into walls unless he’s angry.”

“ _Powers_?” Alex said.

“Whoa whoa,” Michael said, holding up a hand, “Alex doesn’t have powers.”

Max frowned. “Michael, he obviously –”

“ _Alex doesn’t have powers_ ,” he said through grit teeth. “It’s just Mr. Jones messing with us.”

“But how?” Max said. “His powers shouldn’t work against the pollen. Unless . . . Alex, do you still have that spaceship piece you found?”

“No,” Alex said. “I gave it to Guerin. Why? You think he’s watching us through that piece?”

“It’s the only explanation I can think of,” Max said, “aside from –”

“No,” Michael said too quickly. “It makes a lot more sense than anything else. He’s watching us through that piece, it’s some kind of listening device.”

“Okay,” Alex said slowly, unconvinced, “so . . .”

He waited for Michael to say that he’d give it to one of his siblings or maybe hide it away or something. But then he turned to Alex, without hesitation, and said –

“So you should probably stay away from the junkyard for a while.”

“O-Oh,” Alex said, trying not to show the painful jab to his heart in his expression.

“Uh, Michael,” Max said with a glance at Alex, “I can just take the piece until we figure out what to do with it –”

“Why would you need to do that?” Michael said. If he could see the hurt that Alex was sure showed in his eyes, he was choosing to ignore it. “I’ll keep it with me.”

And there it was, something just beneath the hurt – _anger_. Michael would’ve rather had that spaceship piece with him than Alex. He would’ve rather kept Alex away than give the damn glass to his brother for a few days. Why? Why was he so good at taking care of other people, but Alex was always at the bottom of the list?

“Fine,” Alex muttered, and moved past them.

He heard Michael follow. “W-Where are you going?”

Alex probably should’ve let it go, should’ve made up some excuse to spare Michael’s feelings, but there was that incessant anger that picked at his heart and left a lump in his throat and made him want to cry and scream out and demand to know why Michael couldn’t love him back.

So he shrugged a shoulder at his car door, smiled tightly, and said, “Away.”

And without stopping to look at Michael’s reaction, he got into his car, his jaw still clenched, and drove off.

*

When Alex’s car was gone, Max turned to Michael with raised arms.

“What the hell was that?” he said.

Michael raked a hand through his hair and sighed. “Not now, Max,” he muttered, already thinking hard. Max followed.

“Did you see the look on his face when you told him to stay away?”

“Stop it, Max –“

“You’d really rather have that stupid piece than Alex with you?”

Michael whipped around and growled, “I want Alex with me more than _anything_!” Max’s car and his truck levitated just barely over the ground before slamming back down. Michael was breathing heavily, his fists clenched so tightly that his nails carved into his palms.

“But,” he shook his head, and shut his eyes tightly, “something – something’s wrong with him.”

Max narrowed his eyes. “So you believe him.”

“Of course I do,” he said, “but remember what happened when Maria found out she had powers? She almost died. And Alex . . .” he felt sick, out of breath, lost and desperate to have Alex back in his arms again, kissing his cheek and whispering into his ear. “I let Maria do what she wanted, but if there’s even a chance that Alex is in danger, then I’m not leaving anything up to chance.”

Max shook his head. “Michael, you have to tell him you believe him. He’ll think he’s losing his mind –”

“I won’t let it get that far,” Michael said, but he didn’t know if he was reassuring his brother or himself. “I’ll keep an eye on him, just . . . off the junkyard. I don’t want him near the spaceship in case it makes things worse.”

Max searched his face. “And you?” he asked. “He didn’t leave happy, Michael. And if you won’t tell him the truth, he’ll only get angrier. Can you handle that?”

Michael clenched his jaw and swallowed with difficulty past the lump in his throat. He thought of Alex’s eyes when he’d told him not to come by the junkyard anymore. Disappointment, sorrow, _hatred_ for being abandoned again, no matter how brief.

“Yeah,” he said hoarsely, unable to meet Max’s gaze. “I can.”

*

Alex never slept that night.

He’d gotten back home, threw off his clothes and roughly pulled his sweats on, hoping the exhaustion he felt in his bones was enough to put him right to sleep. But he got into bed, breathed with some sliver of relief when he took his prosthetic off, and closed his eyes to the image of Michael telling him, without any hesitance or doubt, to stay away from the junkyard for a while. As if anything happening to Alex would’ve been an inconvenient afterthought.

He hated that after everything, anything Michael said could still make him feel like this, so . . . unimportant. But what startled him was the anger. He was used to feeling resigned, to grieving, to hiding in his own head and letting the cruelty of his own thoughts put him back into place.

_Michael’s too good for you anyway. Who’d ever want to be with someone so broken? Anyone you love is in danger, so it’s safer if he stays away._

But rarely had Alex felt _furious_ with him, like he wanted to shake him and scream and cry and _demand_ to know why he refused Alex any compassion or honesty. Why didn’t he just _tell_ Alex how he felt, if he was afraid for him or not? Why couldn’t he show him the same concern he’d shown –

Alex sat up with a gasp, pushing the thought from his head. He couldn’t think like that, he _shouldn’t_ think like that. He didn’t blame Maria for what had happened. It wasn’t her fault she’d fallen in love with Michael.

_Yeah,_ a voice said, _right after she found out_ you _loved him._

“Stop,” he said out loud, hoping it would be enough to expel the blame. “Stop stop stop.”

He couldn’t do this, not tonight. Alex pushed himself out of bed, reached for his crutches, and made his way to the kitchen where another night of endless work awaited.

The wind was howling more and more strongly, the windows almost rattling. Alex rubbed his eyes as he took a seat at his counter, pulling his laptop in. He opened up the document he kept stored with his notes, recording Mr. Jones’s physical state for research later. Maybe there was something here he could give to Liz so she could work out a new serum, something that probably didn’t hurt as much but which kept him incapacitated.

As usual, and to be safe, he used codenames and made it sound as if he was talking about a stray cat’s condition, in case anybody but him ever got into his computer. Not that anyone could break through his security, but he couldn’t risk bringing harm to Michael and his siblings.

Alex worked until his eyes burned, and only when the windows shook hard was he startled out of his thoughts long enough to realize that the sun had come up.

He checked his phone, realizing he’d forgotten it for the better part of the last three hours, and checked his messages, hoping for one in particular. But no. Michael hadn’t texted or called, even though he knew Alex was upset with him . . .

“Guess you don’t care,” he muttered, scrolling thoughtlessly.

He realized the thought was childish, shook it from his head, and got up with a sigh. He needed a friend.

“How long did you say this conference was again?” Alex asked as he leaned against the wall opposite the doctor’s lockers, his arms crossed.

Kyle hung his white coat at the same time that he pulled out his jeans jacket. “Three days.”

“Three days is a long time,” Alex said, then, forcing his voice lighter, “Sure you won’t miss Roswell too much?”

He scoffed. “I’ll try not to.” He sighed, shaking his head. “You know, if they’re planning on putting all the stuffy doctors in one room, the least they could do is host the conference in Hawaii or something. But _no_. Good ol’ snowy Albuquerque. _Yay_.”

Alex managed a smirk. “Have you got everything you need?”

“You’re asking _me_ that?” Kyle raised a brow. “Aren’t you guys the ones with the . . .” he glanced at the stairwell to make sure they weren’t being overheard, and lowered his voice regardless. “ _Psychotic alien problem_?”

Alex hummed, losing himself to his thoughts all over again. He remembered the way Mr. Jones had watched him, had spoken only to him. There had to have been a reason for it. And there was the stuff he said . . .

“I think . . .” he said slowly, “I think he’s planning something . . . smaller.”

Kyle stopped fixing his collar. “Smaller?”

Alex nodded. “He kept talking about the big picture, how it had destroyed my family. ‘Kept missing the details.’”

Kyle frowned. “Well, he wants to destroy Isobel and her brothers. Isn’t that detailed enough?”

“Is it?” Alex said.

“You don’t think so?”

“I think Michael alone is a force,” he said. “Hurting just one of them is going to be hard enough.”

Kyle hummed. “Did you tell Guerin any of this?”

_I tried_ , Alex almost confessed, _but he didn’t even believe anything was wrong with me._

“No,” he sighed. There was no point worrying Kyle now about whatever was going on with him. “He wasn’t really . . . paying attention to Mr. Jones’s plans.”

“Let me guess,” he puffed up his chest and deepened his voice, “’Don’t talk to my Alex, you son of a bitch.’”

Alex blushed. “He didn’t say that . . . _exactly_. He said a lot of other very stupid stuff, but not _that_.” He let his head fall back against the wall. “Do you have to go?”

Kyle tilted his head, considering him. “Guerin being hopelessly in love with you again?”

Alex scoffed half-heartedly. “You keep saying that, but . . . I don’t really know if it’s true anymore.”

“Alex –”

“And it’s not that,” he said quickly, not wanting to hear Kyle’s empty reassurances. “I’ve just felt . . . off lately. So much is going on, I just wish my best friend wasn’t leaving, too.”

Kyle smiled, pleased. “ _Best friend_?”

Alex laughed. “Shut up.”

Kyle shrugged, still grinning. “I didn’t say anything.” His expression softened. “And I’ll be back before you know it.” He scratched his jaw. “If something’s wrong though, maybe I should stay . . .”

“No,” Alex shook his head. “No, I don’t want to be the reason you do that. Besides, I’m probably just tired.”

“ _That_ , I can believe,” he said, though his brows were still furrowed as if he was trying to diagnose Alex just by looking at him.

Alex patted his arm. “Forget it. I’m fine. You want breakfast before you have to leave or not?”

He slung his bag over his shoulder. “Yes, please.”

Alex stared at the twenty-foot statue of his father, in perfect view from his booth at the Crashdown. Arturo had expressed his dislike of having Jesse Manes towering over his diner, but the good people of Roswell had built it close by anyway.

Alex’s barely-touched dessert plate sat before him, his fork in hand, his thumb thoughtlessly scratching the steel.

“Hey,” a voice said. Without looking, Alex recognized it.

“Hi,” he muttered. Maria snapped her fingers in his face, the sound like gunshots in his ears, and he flinched out of his thoughts, his fork clattering onto the table. “Don’t do that,” he snapped.

Maria, startled, slowly retracted her hand. “A-Alex,” she said, her voice quiet. “I’m sorry, you were dazed.”

Alex blinked. “No!” he said immediately, feeling like he’d just woken from a bad dream. “No, _I’m_ sorry, I didn’t mean to – I’m just – I’m tired. I’m sorry.”

Maria studied his face like she was trying to look for something wrong. Alex hated when she did that. He’d spent so much of his life watched like a hawk, his thoughts read, never a single moment private. He didn’t need it now, and definitely not from Maria.

He shoved the thoughts back down. What was _wrong_ with him?

“Can you please not do that?” he said with a forced lightness he didn’t feel. “I don’t like being studied.”

Regardless, she seemed to reach a conclusion and her eyes softened. “Is it about Mr. Jones?”

_No,_ he thought, _it’s about not wanting to be probed like a damn experiment. It’s about you actually_ listening _when I talk instead of pretending to._

He shook the thought from his head at once. Definitely just exhaustion. He rubbed his chest and managed a tight smile, hoping that if he acted like he was okay, it would weaken the weight on his heart.

“I still don’t know what to make of him,” he confessed. “Something he said keeps nagging at me. Kyle told me to tell Guerin and the others, so I texted them.”

“How long ago did Kyle leave?”

Alex shrugged a shoulder, returning his attention to the tribute to his father. “A few minutes. Or hours. I – uh – I don’t know, I lost track of time.”

“Alex,” Maria said more softly. “Stop looking at it.”

“Stop how?” Alex said, unmoving. “It’s right there. For everyone to see. Jesse Manes, the hero.”

“It’s just going to upset you.”

“A lot of things upset me,” he muttered, and finally tore his eyes away, slumping in his seat and rubbing his eyes. “I’ll get over it.”

Maria frowned and opened her mouth to say something else, but before she could, the bell above the door jingled, and in walked Michael, Max, and Isobel. Alex half-worried Michael would sit next to Maria, but he grabbed a chair from another table and sat between them. Alex felt strangely disappointed.

_Michael had been fine holding Maria’s hand and kissing her in front of me,_ part of Alex thought. _But God forbid he hurt_ her _feelings._

Alex clenched his jaw painfully tight. He wished that howling wind would stop, it was making it hard for him to think.

“You okay?” Max asked as he slid in next to him.

Alex blinked. “Y-Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.”

“What was the important piece of information you wanted to tell us?” Isobel said, taking the seat beside Maria. “I have two events next month that need my immediate attention.”

“They’ll have to wait,” Alex sighed, and he told them about his talk with Kyle and his theory about what Mr. Jones might’ve been planning.

“I just don’t know what it could be _exactly_ ,” he finished. “But it’s going to be right under our noses.”

“So we’re essentially looking for a needle in a haystack,” Michael smirked. “That’s great.”

“Hey,” Alex said, “he let something slip, like I said he would.”

Max tapped a finger on the table. “Does Liz know about this?” Alex shook his head. “Then I better tell her. Maybe she found something in her research that’ll help.”

“I’ll tell my brothers,” Alex said. “Let them know to be on the lookout for anything out of the ordinary.”

“That’s a good idea.”

“I can’t believe this,” Isobel said. “Do we even know where to start looking? What if he tries to possess someone?”

“He couldn’t,” Max reassured her. “Not from where he is.”

“And not with all that pollen,” Michael said darkly.

Alex pursed his lips and looked back out the window at his father’s statue. “Is it hurting him? The pollen?”

Michael narrowed his eyes. “’ _Is it hurting him’_? Are you kidding me?”

“He can barely lift his own head up,” Alex defended. “And he looks like he’s _dying_. I’m just saying, maybe you could ease up a little bit, just enough for him to breathe.”

“Alex –” Max started, but Michael cut him off, his dark eyes on Alex.

“If he has enough energy to talk to you, then he’s better off than he should be.”

Alex tightened his fists on his lap and looked away, willing the anger climbing his throat down. The wind was getting stronger and stronger, the windows rattling. Some of the customers and waiters turned to look, uneasy.

“I was thinking about that,” he said, trying to keep his voice even. “He talked to me last time, more than he’d ever talked to any of you. And I think he knows how to answer some of these questions I have.” He took a deep breath, bracing himself. “So maybe another visit –”

“ _No_ ,” Michael said immediately, sitting up. “No, Alex. You’re not going anywhere near him again.”

Alex pressed his lips together, aware Isobel and Maria were watching the exchange and not caring. “Why?” he pressed. “Do you finally believe that something’s going on with me?”

Michael turned red, his eyes furious. “I don’t want you to screw it up!” he snapped, and Alex turned silent. “We got lucky last time, but you’re a _Manes_! Disaster follows you wherever you go, and you’re not bringing that to the _one_ source we have.”

Alex stared, wide-eyed and feeling like his heart had been shredded before his eyes. Somewhere behind him, lightning struck and thunder shook the building. Alex and the others whipped around. A lightning storm this quickly?

Alex’s heart was racing. This had to be it, right? Proof that he’d done something, that somehow he was responsible for the weird stuff going on? Even Maria was glancing at him warily as if realizing that he might be responsible.

He looked to Michael. “Guerin –”

“It’s a storm,” he said, unfazed. “They happen all the time in New Mexico.”

Alex made a helpless growl in the back of his throat despite himself. “Oh come _on_ –"

“Watch that anger, Private,” Michael said suddenly, gesturing over a still stunned waiter who’d been watching the gathering storm. “You know what your old man did when _he_ got angry.”

Alex froze, at a loss. Maria glared at Michael while Isobel demanded to know why he was acting like this. Alex wished he could understand it himself, but no reason could’ve been good enough for Michael to talk to him so cruelly. Was he making fun of Alex now? Was he just dismissing him? Whatever the answer, Alex didn’t think he wanted to hear it, for fear that it was worse.

Without a word, his anger drained, and feeling more lost than he’d felt in months, Alex walked out, past Max, past a seemingly careless Michael, and left the diner, into the storm.

The rain didn’t stop or weaken in the slightest when Alex arrived at the caves where Mr. Jones was supposed to be. Using the flashlight on his phone, Alex made his way deep inside.

He had questions, and if Michael wasn’t going to listen to him or even try to help, then he’d go to the only other person there was. He found Mr. Jones slumped over in his chair, seemingly asleep. His fingers were turning blue with the cold, and red splotches appeared on his skin like bruises.

Alex faltered, his thoughts coming to a still. Mr. Jones didn’t seem to be any kind of threat now, but a man, chained and hurt and probably not knowing how he got here or what he did that had been so terrible that it had warranted cruelty from his own family.

Alex was just starting to feel a twinge of sympathy when Mr. Jones went into a fit of coughs. He stepped forward, hand extended hesitantly, but soon Mr. Jones’s coughs turned to rugged laughter.

“Knew I’d see you again,” he said, and looked up. His dark eyes narrowed. “Where’s the team? Don’t tell me they sent you in here alone.”

Alex stepped back again. “What’s happening to me?” he demanded. “You know, don’t you?”

He hummed, stretching as much as he was able to with his restraints. “You look soaked. That storm doesn’t sound too good. How angry _were_ you? Was it Michael? I blame Michael.”

Alex’s breath caught. “So the storm _is_ because of me.”

“I always knew _you_ were the powerful Manes,” Mr. Jones said. “Imagine if that power had gone to your daddy! What a waste, huh?”

Alex growled, approaching him. “Would you say something that makes sense? I can’t have powers.”

“Why not?”

“Because –” Alex stammered, “I’m human!”

“So?”

“And a Manes!”

“Yeah. _So_?” he shrugged. “Manes have a history of taking what’s not theirs. Are you really surprised that one of them took a little too much and it hurt another innocent?”

Alex considered this. “Took too much? You’re saying something one of them took did this to me? Is this like the dream I’ve been having?”

At this, Mr. Jones smiled. “Dream, huh? You _sure_ that’s what it is?”

Alex swallowed, thinking about the vivid images he’d seen every night. Something about them had always felt familiar, like a fishhook tugging at his chest, urging him closer. Urging him to _remember_.

“It’s a memory,” he whispered, and all of a sudden, his legs were too weak to carry him. He sat down, his eyes wide as he took it in. The rocky floor dug into his legs painfully, but he didn’t care.

Mr. Jones tilted his head at him, as if watching a kitten learning how to walk. “Surprised? Because I think part of you knew this whole time that there was always just a _little_ more to the story.”

“It can’t be true,” Alex muttered. “I don’t have powers, and a stupid spaceship piece couldn’t have given them to me.”

“No?” he chuckled. “You have any idea what that ‘stupid spaceship piece’ can do? That’s unreleased energy, untouched and loaded like a nuclear bomb, waiting to explode. Now. In comes another lifeform –”

“I was a kid!”

“You think that matters?” he scoffed. “To a creature like that? You had a heart and a mind, and that was good enough.”

Alex shook his head. “This can’t be happening. This – this is another nightmare. It’s not true.”

Mr. Jones hissed quietly beneath his breath. “Does seem that way, huh? I mean, aside from how Michael’s been treating you, everything you know’s been turned upside down, hasn’t it?”

Alex looked up. “You can’t possibly know that,” he said. “I haven’t been to the junkyard all day.”

“I don’t need a piece of glass to know the obvious, Manes,” he said. “But you apparently do.”

And Alex knew he shouldn’t have listened, knew that nothing Mr. Jones said could’ve held much weight. But he was hunched over like every word pained him. Would he have wasted breath on something that wasn’t important?

“What are you talking about?”

Mr. Jones smiled sadly. “You think those people are actually your friends?”

“Okay,” Alex stood. “I’m not listening to this.”

“You actually think they would trust a _Manes_?” he went on. “Did you even tell ‘em you were here? Do you know what they’d do if they found out?”

“Stop it!” he demanded. He felt on edge, every nerve in his body strung tight like a violin.

“Having that problem a lot, aren’t you?” Mr. Jones said with the same twinkle in his dark eyes. “Just _angry_ all the time. Wanna know why?”

Alex faltered, knowing it was a bad idea to listen but unable to help it. Who else would give him answers? Who else would help him figure things out?

Mr. Jones, on the other hand, looked thrilled to have Alex’s attention, eager in a way Michael never was. “It’s your truth,” he said in a voice barely above a whisper, but with words that echoed like sirens against the cave walls.

Alex clenched his jaw. “You’re lying.”

“Am I?” he demanded, his smile tighter. “Your father beat you, your brothers watched, your own mother couldn’t stand the sight of you and what you had become because of her –”

“Stop,” Alex croaked.

“Your friends chose themselves without a backwards glance, and _Michael_ ,” he scoffed. “After everything you’ve done for him, he _still_ sees you as Jesse Manes’s son.”

“That’s not true,” he managed.

He sighed deeply, his body curling in on itself like it was trying to preserve heat. “You’ve lived through darkness, Alex, you _know_ what the world’s really like. People betray people, alien or not. You’ve protected him over and over, but that’s all you are to him. To _them_. A protector. Someone they _need_ , but don’t want. You ever think about that? About how many people can let you down . . . and how you love them anyway? Even when they don’t deserve it.”

Alex’s heart rattled in his chest uncertainly. Why did Mr. Jones sound like he knew what he was talking about? Like he’d experienced being so unwanted himself.

He slid his jacket off, the outside a little damp, but the inside warm and dry. And he put it over Mr. Jones’s shoulders.

Mr. Jones looked up, startled. Alex’s jaw was clenched as he stepped back. There was an anger, a _hatred_ in his chest that made him halfway sick. Michael should’ve been here with him, holding him, _protecting_ him in a time when he was terrified. Didn’t he deserve that much?

The storm raged on outside, and Alex trembled, but not because of the cold.

“I’m not my father,” he said, the words sounding like a plea to his own ears. He wasn’t like his father, he _couldn’t_ be.

To his surprise, Mr. Jones nodded, all trace of humor and mockery gone. “I know.”

Alex couldn’t sleep. He was losing his mind, and he couldn’t sleep.

His eyes burned, his shoulders felt heavy. There was a weight on his chest and he couldn’t get comfortable no matter how he turned under the blanket. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw that spaceship piece, glowing and calling to him.

His laptop sat open on his nightstand, the blue light almost haunting. With a huff, Alex pushed himself up, and pulled it close. The cursor sat blinking at him from his half-finished report. He rubbed an impatient hand over his weary face, his breaths heavy. He was sweating whenever he touched the blanket, and freezing whenever he wasn’t.

He’d barely finished typing down Mr. Jones’s most recent condition when he couldn’t take sitting there anymore and pushed the laptop aside. He couldn’t breathe. He needed to go outside, he needed some fresh air, he needed . . . he needed . . .

Biting his lower lip hard, Alex grabbed his phone and dialed Michael’s name. He held the screen to his ear, pulling his good knee to his chest. What would he say? How would he start the conversation?

He didn’t know, and he didn’t care. He just wanted to hear Michael’s voice, just one kind, reassuring word, and maybe then everything would be okay. Maybe then, he’d finally be able to _sleep_.

Barely one ring had passed when –

“Alex?” Michael’s voice came, softer than it had been during the day. “You okay? Why’re you awake?”

_Why?_ part of Alex demanded to know. _Why can’t he be this kind when I see him?_

Alex banished the thought. Michael was giving him some attention, shouldn’t he have been happier?

“I . . . uh,” Alex scratched down his leg. There was a cold sweat around the nape of his neck and between his shoulder blades. However he sat, he felt like there were bugs crawling all over his body. “I – I can’t sleep, I feel weird.”

A moment of silence. “Alex,” Michael said steadily, and Alex’s heart started to plummet. He knew that tone. “You need to calm down. Okay? Nothing’s wrong with you, nothing’s going on, it’s all in your head –”

“It’s not,” Alex tried, “listen, tonight, I went to see –”

“Alex, you’re freaking yourself out. Nothing’s wrong with –”

“I need you,” Alex blurted, desperate. “Can – can I come over?” Then came a pause Alex didn’t expect. His eyes burned. “Please, Guerin.”

“I . . . I have work, Alex,” he said. “You can’t.”

“But –”

“Just try to get some sleep,” Michael cut him off. What, he couldn’t wait to be rid of him? To be done with this call? With Alex’s cowardice? Was that it?

“ _I need you_ –”

“I’m busy.”

Something, either a cry or a scream, made its way up Alex’s throat. _Why?_ Why was Michael doing this to him?

His grip on his phone turned unbearably tight as he thought of what Mr. Jones had said. Alex had never ignored Michael’s calls, had come _running_ whenever Michael or _any of them_ needed him. He needed Michael this _once_ , couldn’t he do him the same courtesy?

_Beyond a courtesy, can’t he do this just because he loves me?_

Then a horrifying thought occurred. What if Michael just didn’t love him? What if he never really had?

Michael was still talking on the other end, telling Alex to lie down, to close his eyes, to try to get over the frightening images he always saw when the world turned dark. But Alex couldn’t hear him anymore.

Knowing only that he was furious and afraid and nothing else, Alex threw his phone into the opposite wall, watching it shatter before it hit the ground. The screen was black, Michael’s unsympathetic voice was gone. Alex stared ahead, hugging himself slowly with trembling hands. The rain pelted the windows, the storm unrelenting.

What had he done? He’d gotten a little angry, but that was fine, right? Everybody got a little angry sometimes.

_“He deserved it,”_ a familiar voice said, and Alex sat up, alert.

“Who said that?” he demanded.

_“You did,”_ the voice said. Alex looked around, but saw only his reflection in the mirror. He froze.

His reflection was smiling back at him with a long, lazy grin.

Alex stared, wide-eyed. “Y-You . . .”

“Am _you_ ,” Mirror Alex finished. Instead of his eyes, covering even the whites, was a steady swirl of colors, rippling over one another; pink, purple, gold. The colors of Michael’s spaceship. Extending from each of the eyes were veins of the same color, stretching over the skin like the spaceship piece was imbedding itself into Alex’s very blood.

“No,” he whispered, his hands covering his ears. “You’re not real. I’m – I’m dreaming. I’m just – I’m dreaming.”

“How can you dream if you can’t fall asleep?” Mirror Alex said. “Shame Guerin won’t help you. But then,” he shrugged, “when has he ever?”

Alex winced. “Why do I . . . look like that?”

“This?” he gestured at himself. Alex noticed his reflection was dressed, his clothes dark. “This is your true self, Alex. All that anger you just keep pushing down? What’d you _think_ was eventually going to happen to it?”

“No,” Alex shook his head. “I’m not – I’m not that –”

“ _What_?” Mirror Alex said darkly. “Powerful? Why? Because _Michael Guerin_ says you’re not?”

“I’m not _evil_.”

Mirror Alex looked so hurt then that Alex almost regretted the words. “Why am I evil, Alex? Because I know how to look out for myself? Because I can recognize demons in the people that call themselves my _friends_?” He clapped slowly. “You’ve beaten dear old dad down, _well done_. Now Maria gets to throw a punch at you? Liz? _Guerin_? How many more people are you willing to let walk all over you just so that they don’t walk away?”

“I’m not like that,” Alex said through grit teeth.

Mirror Alex’s eyes softened. He sighed. “Not for much longer, you won’t be. I’ll take care of you, Alex. Don’t worry.”

Alex frowned. _What does that mean?_ he almost asked, but then he blinked, and Mirror Alex was gone.

*

Michael had not handled the night’s events well.

As he lay on the bench in his cell, staring at the concrete ceiling, he had more than a few regrets about the way the past nine hours had gone, and none of them had to do with drinking away his senses at the bar or the fight with the random pool player or getting arrested. And _everything_ to do with Alex’s voice on the phone.

_“I need you. Can – can I come over?”_

Michael shut his eyes, his throbbing migraine a mercy compared to the memory of Alex’s fear, his trembling voice. Michael’s hands clenched and unclenched at his sides, his eye twitching.

Alex never ended their calls, but he’d ended it last night, hanging up and cutting Michael off as if he couldn’t bear listen to anything else he had to say. And Michael had lost control. Everything in his bunker would need replacing, short of the spaceship pieces that had come back together on their own. Michael had glared at them as if they were to blame and went to drown his misery in drinks, hoping enough of them would keep him from running to Alex and holding him tightly.

They hadn’t. A fight followed, as it always did, and now, Michael was following the gray concrete with his eyes, trying to focus on what he could do to speed up his research and rid Alex of these powers that were clearly getting too strong for his own good. It was better than focusing on the alternative.

Sherriff Valenti then walked in, but Michael was too caught up in his thoughts to try for his usual snarky remark. Then he noticed the person behind her.

“Alex,” he gasped, sitting up with wide eyes.

Alex stilled momentarily at the sight of the cowboy. He pursed his lips.

Michael swallowed and tried for a light voice. “You here to bust me out, Private?”

But then Michael saw that Alex hadn’t been following the Sherriff of his own free will. He was handcuffed. His face fell and he stood, gripping the bars.

“What’d you do?” he said immediately, looking Alex over for injuries. Aside from a cut lip and a bruise on his cheek, he seemed fine. “What happened?”

“Sit back down, Guerin,” Sherriff Valenti said as she undid Alex’s cuffs. Alex stood in front of Michael without looking at him, but the Sherriff’s shoulders slumped as if she couldn’t believe Alex really thought she would put him in a cell.

“You sit down, too, Alex,” she said more softly, gesturing to the chair at her desk. She took the other chair, and crossed her hands expectantly. Michael remembered now. Alex and Kyle had been best friends since they were kids. Alex must’ve been more to Kyle’s mother than the respected Air Force captain the town knew.

But Alex only scoffed and sat down, crossing his arms.

“Pays to know the Sherriff, I guess,” he said with a humorless smirk.

Sherriff Valenti did not look amused. “Why’d you do it?”

“Do what?” Michael demanded. He could open the door with his mind, but he couldn’t risk the Sherriff seeing. He didn’t think that would be a good enough reason to stay back for long. He just needed to touch Alex, to know he was safe. “If anyone put a finger on him –”

“I hit my cheek on the steering wheel,” Alex cut him off, still not looking at him, “when I ran my car into dad’s statue.”

Michael stared. “Y-You did what?”

“Why?” Alex said. “You didn’t like it, did you? ‘Cause it’s rubble now.”

“Alex . . .”

“This isn’t you,” Sherriff Valenti said.

“Maybe it should be,” Alex countered.

Her dark eyes were narrowed, as if trying to see through to the good boy she’d always known. “I know there were problems between you and your father, but I never expected _this_. Not from you.”

She leaned forward in her seat. “Tell me what’s going on with you. Are you not sleeping, are you not taking your pain medication? Tell me, and I’ll listen.”

Alex’s brows furrowed. “Tell you? I’m . . . grieving.”

She sighed and reached for Alex’s hand. “Sweetheart, I –”

“No matter where I turn,” Alex said, “people keep giving me their condolences.” Sherriff Valenti stilled. “’Sorry about your dad. He was such a hero. You must really miss him.’ It was driving me _crazy_. They wouldn’t stop. He was a monster, and gets to be _commemorated_?”

“Alex, please,” she tried. “Let me help you –”

“And you always knew, didn’t you?” Alex said, and the Sherriff’s face fell. “You _knew_ what he was doing to us, and you never stopped him.” He turned to Michael. “Hey, Guerin, did you know that dad used to make my brothers watch while he beat me up? And if anyone took a single _step_ towards me, the punches got harder and the screams got louder and everything hurt a lot more. Until asking for help meant more danger, and I knew better.”

Michael clenched his jaw, his eyes burning, his knuckles white as he gripped the bars.

He wanted Alex. He wanted to hold him and comfort him and tell him he would help him himself. That he would fix everything.

Alex didn’t seem to hear his thoughts as he turned back to a shocked and guilty Sherriff. “And you always knew. I never spoke, but you saw the bruises. You saw me flinch more than once. You _knew_.”

“Alex,” she opened her mouth on several silent sentences. Michael could see the Sherriff at war with the mother side of her. “It . . . it was so long ago –”

“No, it wasn’t,” Alex said at once, as if just realizing how many people had let him down. “It was two months ago. It was seventeen years, and then another eleven more. It was nonstop looking over my shoulder and terrified for the people that I loved, thinking that they were all better off without me because what if he followed me? What if he attacked whoever tried to step in and help, like he always did! Because _you_ didn’t stop him when you could have.”

He scoffed, the pure loss in his voice shattering Michael’s heart. “What’s going on with me?” A tear slid down his cheek. “I’m _free_ , and I have no idea what that means.”

Michael heard a weird sound like bricks moving together, and turned to find cracks forming in the wall and ceiling. He looked back at Alex. _He’s getting stronger_ , he thought. Neither Alex nor Sherriff Valenti seemed to notice though.

“Please,” she said with a forced calm, though even Michael could see her eyes fill with tears. “Please, Alex, let me – let me help you now.”

“If you’re going to charge me,” Alex said coldly, looking away and roughly wiping his cheek. “Do it now and get it over with.”

Sherriff Valenti stopped searching Alex’s face. Whatever she’d been hoping to find, she seemed to have failed. “I want you to go home and rest, Alex,” she said quietly, putting away the cuffs she’d been forced to use on him. “I don’t want you to stay in a place like this, go home.”

“No,” Alex said simply, and stood, nudging his chin at Michael. “I’m not going anywhere without _him_.”

Michael stared, shocked, but Alex still wouldn’t look at him. His grip on the bars was painful, and Sherriff Valenti turned to him, undoubtedly wondering who this dirty, angry cowboy was meant to be to Alex, but she seemed to settle on her decision pretty quickly.

That was how, not five minutes later, Alex and Michael were walking out of the Sherriff’s Department, Alex rubbing his bruised knuckles, his eyes hazed and distracted.

“Hey,” Michael said. Then, more softly, “ _Hey_.”

He reached to cup Alex’s cheek, but the second his fingers touched the airman’s skin, Alex pulled away.

“I didn’t expect to see you here,” he said.

Michael forced a chuckle, hoping it would lighten the heavy air. “Y-Yeah, I needed a drink, and things got out of hand.”

“Needed a drink,” Alex repeated, unsurprised. “At the Pony?”

Michael faltered. “Uh – I –”

“That’s why you were so busy, huh? You were getting drinks and beat up at the Pony?”

The wind picked up. Michael saw hail hit the ground and cars. The storm was getting heavier, _angrier_.

“No, Alex, I –”

“So while I was going out of my mind,” Alex said, “you were with Maria.”

“Alex –”

“Was that what you were so _busy_ with? Did I interrupt anything important?”

“Stop, _stop_ ,” he said immediately, taking Alex’s face tightly in his hands and pressing their foreheads together. “Stop, baby. It’s okay. I’m here now.”

The hail softened to rain again as Michael pressed his fingers subtly to Alex’s pulse. It turned slower as the airman’s breaths against his lips turned deeper. Michael’s eyes fluttered and he tilted his chin up. If he could just kiss Alex, everything would be okay.

But then the airman pulled away, shaking his head and rubbing his eyes roughly. “Sorry,” Alex said suddenly, the darkness in his voice and cruelty in his words gone. “I’m – I’m sorry, I didn’t mean . . .”

“It’s okay,” Michael assured him, reaching for him again. He _needed_ Alex close. He needed to hold him, to inhale his scent, to kiss him long and hard enough that they both forget about whatever had been keeping them apart lately.

Alex, however, seemed to remember. “Guerin, that spaceship piece . . .”

Michael dreaded the question, but he could tell Alex had had a secret that he wanted to let off his chest. “Yeah?”

Alex searched Michael’s face. For what, Michael didn’t know. But eventually, Alex’s shoulders scrunched, and Michael saw the walls come up as the airman turned away from him and muttered, “Uh – never mind.”

He began walking away, and even as Michael reached for him, he knew he had something else he needed to do more. Still staring at Alex’s retreating figure, Michael fished for his phone and dialed Max’s name.

“Call Liz,” Michael said the second his brother picked up. “Tell her to meet us at my bunker. Alex is getting worse.”


	2. Distrust

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm finally finished with the second chapter! If you like it even a little bit, please comment and share as it always makes the world of a difference ❤

Alex opened the door to his brother Gregory standing on the other side.

He sighed, lowering the small icebag from his cheek. “I’m fine.”

Gregory raised a brow. “Good morning to you, too.” He followed Alex inside, closing the door behind him. “That storm is relentless.”

Alex winced, plopping down on the couch. “Can we please talk about anything else?”

“Okay,” he said, tossing his jacket aside. “Let’s talk about the statue you ran over with your car.”

“Sheriff Valenti called you? That was considerate.”

“I don’t think you’re getting how bad this is, Alex.”

Alex shut his eyes, pressing the bag against his bruise. “What is it with everyone and their sudden crush on that statue? It was to commemorate _dad_ , isn’t that reason enough?”

“The statue isn’t the point,” Gregory said, taking the chair closest to him. “But since when do you destroy public property?”

“Since it started towering over me with dad’s cold, dead eyes.”

“ _Alex_ –”

“I’m sorry, okay?” he snapped. “God, I’m so, _so_ sorry that after three decades of – of following orders and doing what everybody wanted me to do, I lost it for a split second!” He huffed. “I know it wasn’t like me, and I got a little angry, and I shouldn’t have done it, but I did.”

Gregory said nothing for a while, studying Alex as if looking for something. Then –

“You know Flint was over when the sheriff called? You are so lucky I picked up the phone.”

Alex looked over at his brother, and found his lips curled in a half-smile. Alex chuckled despite himself. “I dunno,” he muttered. “I don’t think he liked that statue a lot more than we did.”

Gregory shrugged a shoulder. “I’m not talking about the statue, Alex. Flint cares about you, in his own way. He’d need to find a way to explain this, at least to himself.”

Alex raised a brow. “And you don’t?”

“Why? Is there something you want to tell me?”

Alex hesitated. He breathed silently for several long seconds before –

“Would you believe me?”

Gregory frowned. “Duh.”

“Even if it’s crazy?”

“What about our lives _isn’t_ crazy?”

“No,” Alex said at once. “ _No_. I mean . . . _really_ crazy.”

Gregory looked startled for only a split second, but, ever the military man, hid it away quickly. “I’m listening, little brother.”

Alex exhaled shakily. If Michael wasn’t going to believe him, then maybe his brother would. “You know that Michael, Isobel, and Max have Mr. Jones tied up in one of the caves, right?”

Gregory’s eyes darkened, as if he knew where this was going and knew he wouldn’t like it. He nodded, nonetheless.

Alex’s heart was beginning to beat painfully. Mr. Jones’s words rang in his ears, but he knew he had to be wrong. His brother would understand, would trust that he wasn’t losing his mind, that he was terrified and wanted help.

He wasn’t a bad person, Gregory would reassure him. It was just dark thoughts put there by a psychotic alien who was trying to mess with him. A psychotic alien who seemed to have more sympathy for his struggles than the man that was meant to love him, but –

“I’ve been having these dreams,” he blurted. “These . . . nightmares.” And he told him. He told him that he’d had the same nightmare over and over since they’d found Mr. Jones, that he’d discovered they were actually memories, that he’d been having strange powers.

“You think _you’re_ causing this storm?” Gregory interrupted.

“I don’t _think_ I’m causing it, I know I am,” Alex said. “But there’s more.”

He told him about his first conversation with Mr. Jones, the doubts and fears that had been consuming him for days. He didn’t tell him about his secret visits to the alien, didn’t know why, and didn’t dwell on it. Lastly, he confessed to –

“You’re really going to tell him about me?” Mirror Alex said, and Alex looked over Gregory’s shoulder at his reflection.

Mirror Alex lounged against the frame, head tilted, his eyes glowing. He grinned lazily. “That won’t make you look crazy at all.”

“Alex?” Gregory frowned, following Alex’s eyes. “What’re you looking at?”

“Gasp,” Mirror Alex mocked. “It’s already starting.”

Alex looked between Gregory and his reflection. “You don’t . . . see that?”

“See what?” Gregory said, eyes narrowed as if trying to find whatever he thought he was supposed to. “I just see us.”

Mirror Alex shrugged. “Go ahead, Alex,” he said. “Tell him you have an evil twin in the mirror. Because that’s what I am, right?” And for a split second, his glowing eyes darkened. “ _Evil_?”

Alex swallowed. Why? Why couldn’t he just tell Gregory about his reflection?

As if hearing his thoughts, Mirror Alex smiled. “Because you don’t want to lose me. Not really. You’re angry, and you want to feel free, and you know I’m the only one that can help you do that.”

“ _Alex_ ,” Gregory put a hand on his shoulder, and Alex flinched. The window behind them suddenly shattered. Gregory jumped to his feet, but Alex sat, staring at his reflection. He smiled, something akin to pride in his expression.

“Good boy,” he said.

“Are you okay?” Gregory asked, carefully dusting glass off Alex’s shoulders. Alex felt cuts in his neck and cheek open up and burn. Had he been hit? Weird. He hadn’t noticed.

“Uh – yeah,” Alex muttered, standing.

“Alex,” Gregory was looking between his brother and the broken window. “What the hell just happened?”

Alex glanced at the mirror, but his glowing-eyed reflection was gone. Instead, in his dark eyes, he saw the fear and anger that lay beneath the surface.

“Please don’t tell me I’m imagining it,” he said quietly. “Don’t tell me it’s all in my head, don’t tell me I’m not responsible, because if I hear it one more time, I – I’ll –”

“Okay,” Gregory said, mercifully cutting him off. “Okay, it’s okay, Alex.”

He put a hesitant hand on Alex’s shoulder and when he seemed to realize that Alex wouldn’t push him away, he pulled him in against him. “It’ll be okay, little brother. We’ll figure this out.”

Alex tried to hug Gregory back, to take comfort in his warmth against the cold now drifting in through the open window. But he couldn’t feel him. Try as he might, he couldn’t feel Gregory’s warmth, his heart beating in his chest, his voice in Alex’s ear muffled.

“It’s going to be okay,” Gregory promised. “I’m right here, I’m not leaving you.”

Alex gripped Gregory back tightly, pressing his forehead to his brother’s shoulder. Behind him, he could hear Mirror Alex scoff darkly.

“Yeah,” he said. “We’ll see.”

The storm finally stopped as Alex drove into the junkyard. He felt hope, as small as it was, that his brother had believed him.

Gregory had seemed just as surprised that Michael had dismissed Alex’s concerns, but he’d assured Alex that he would talk to Michael, as well as the others.

“Let me go look through some of the Project Shepherd archives,” he’d said. “See if I can find anything that might help. _Stay here_ , Alex, don’t go anywhere. Okay? Let me take care of this.”

And he’d left, and Alex had nodded, unable to admit that staying home meant having to stay with his reflection. But not ten minutes after Gregory had gone, Alex got into his car and drove without much thought as to what he would say whenever he got to where he was going.

But he wanted to see Michael. He knew that much. He wanted to see Michael’s face, hear his voice. Was it getting colder? No, the rain had stopped. His mind was swirling.

_But Gregory promised me,_ Alex thought. _He promised me everything would be better._ He just had to hold on for another few hours, and then hopefully by tonight, this whole nightmare would be behind him.

So Alex climbed out of his car, came up to the trailer door, and knocked. No one answered. Alex dug his toe into the ground, waiting. He knocked again, and again there was no answer. He frowned. Had Michael gone to sleep? Was he not here?

Alex looked around at the blue truck. Michael wouldn’t let anyone drive him anywhere.

Then he heard it, a faint _crash_ from somewhere below, like a table falling over on its side. Alex frowned, looking for the entrance to the bunker. He bent as low as he could before his thigh ached in protest, and listened. The crash came again. Alex imagined Michael angry and smashing his work against the walls.

He opened the small door and climbed down as quickly as he could. He touched the ground to find Michael’s back to him, head in his hands as files of papers and wrenches and pencils and broken pieces of machinery flew into each other.

Michael didn’t seem to realize what he was doing, and didn’t seem to care. His shoulders were tense and his body trembling slightly and his fingers were roughly pulling at his curls as if he didn’t know what to do or where to go.

The spaceship pieces, Alex realized, weren’t anywhere to be found. _Picked up on that pretty quickly,_ a voice that sounded frighteningly like his reflection taunted. Alex shoved it down.

He reached out to put a hand on Michael’s back, the skin hot even through his shirt. “Guerin?” he spoke, and Michael, like every levitating object in that bunker, froze.

Then it came crashing down. Michael turned slowly to him with narrowed eyes, as if wondering if what he was seeing was real.

“Alex?”

Alex didn’t trust himself to speak. He nodded.

“You’re here,” he said slowly.

Alex swallowed under the heavy gaze. Then he realized why Michael was so surprised to see him, and his racing heart calmed to a dull, painful thud.

“I know you told me to stay away,” he said, more quietly than he’d intended. He cleared his throat. “I just wanted to check on you. After this morning.”

Michael licked his lower lip as he took Alex in, like this was the first time they’d seen each other in a decade. He looked over his shoulder at the mess he’d created, then back at Alex. “Get back up the ladder,” he finally said. “I’m right behind you.”

Alex wanted to ask why Michael had looked so distressed earlier, but the cowboy looked eager to see him leave the bunker, and Alex, trying not to feel aggravated by it, did as Michael wanted.

When they got back to ground level, Michael was quick to shut the bunker behind him.

“Is the piece down there?” Alex asked. “I didn’t see it.”

Michael dusted off his hands and huffed, putting them on his hip. “You weren’t supposed to come, Alex. It’s too dangerous.”

“I . . .” Alex shook his head. “Has Gregory called at all today?”

Michael blinked up at the sky, just noticing the lack of rain. “No? Why?”

Alex’s spirits dimmed slightly. He could feel the wind pick up. “I just thought . . . why were you wrecking the bunker? All your work is ruined.”

Michael shrugged. If Alex didn’t know him so well, he might’ve believed that his work didn’t matter at all to him. “I can recreate it all. Come on,” he said, guiding Alex further away from the bunker’s entrance, “get away from there.”

“That’s a lot of recreating, Guerin,” Alex said, ignoring him.

“I was just letting off some steam,” Michael said, pushing past him to the trailer. “No big deal.” He looked Alex over again, this time the shock replaced with carefully concealed concern. “Why’s your shirt torn?” His frown deepened as he peeled back Alex’s collar to expose some of the smaller cuts along his neck and collarbone. “What the hell happened to you? Who did this?”

_You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,_ Alex thought bitterly, and barely managed to shove it down this time. _It’s getting harder to do that._ But all he had to do was wait until Gregory came. He didn’t want to be angry at Michael now, not when he’d finally gotten someone on his side.

He turned away from his touch. Michael’s hand hung there for a bit before he brought it down.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said.

“It _does_ matter,” he said through grit teeth, taking Alex’s arm in a tight grip. “Come with me.”

Alex let Michael pull him into the trailer and sit him down on the bed. Michael’s fingers lingered on his shoulder, as if he was struggling to let go. Alex felt a twinge of hope at the touch. Michael looked around.

He pulled a small basket of gauze and bandages out of a cabinet under the sink and came back to sit down next to Alex, their thighs pressed together.

“Look at me,” Michael muttered, his fingers under Alex’s chin guiding his head around, making him look at Michael. Alex could’ve told him that he’d never stopped looking.

Michael’s hands on him as he pressed a small ball of alcohol-soaked cotton against the smallest cut were gentle, holding his jaw as if it was made of glass, his other hand careful with the cotton as if terrified of hurting Alex.

“You know it’ll sting either way,” Alex muttered, his eyes on Michael’s. It probably didn’t help his concentration that Alex was staring right at him, but he couldn’t help it. Michael was so beautiful when he was focused. The way his brows knit together, the way his chest rose and fell slowly as if he was afraid of breathing too suddenly and breaking his concentration, the way his tongue pressed to the corner of his mouth.

Then a voice that sounded very much like his alter ego spoke in his mind –

_“Great, he’ll clean up your cuts but leaves your sanity to rot.”_

Alex flinched, turning away.

“Alex?” Michael touched his shoulder, but Alex didn’t feel the usual flutter he always felt. Instead, he found himself wanting to slap Michael’s hand off, to push him away. Michael’s concern was a lie, an empty gesture. In the back of his mind somewhere, Alex knew that it wasn’t, it couldn’t have been. But the forefront was just _angry_.

“Hey,” Michael moved closer.

Before Alex knew it, the resentment was pouring out of him in a voice that sounded like his and nothing at all like his at the same time.

“Guess you have time to care about me,” he said. “Now that it’s not inconvenient.”

He wasn’t looking at Michael, but he didn’t feel the cowboy tense up like any of this startled him. “Alex,” he said.

“But when you have to really listen to me, to _try_ , I’m just not worth the effort, huh?”

“It’s gonna be okay.” His voice was quiet, like Alex not wanting to be near him didn’t exactly surprise him. Didn’t he care? Didn’t that bother him at all?

Alex could feel Michael’s hot breath against his jaw. “Baby,” he said quietly. He brought his hand up to cup the other side of Alex’s face, his thumb brushing Alex’s cheek. “Look at me.”

Slowly, Alex turned to face him. Michael ran his thumb across Alex’s lips, and it loosened Alex’s jaw. “I’m right here,” he whispered, his eyes falling to Alex’s lips as Alex’s fell to his. “I’m right here. I’m not leaving you.”

The longer he spoke, the more the tension building in Alex’s chest loosened. Then Michael’s forehead rested against his own, and a shaky exhale escaped his lips before he could help it.

“I’m right here, baby.”

“B-But the storm –” Alex managed.

Michael tilted his chin up. “What storm?”

Alex looked around and realized that sunlight was pouring in through the windows. His shoulders fell. “It stopped.”

Michael took his face in both hands, his touch reverent, like he’d done that night at the reunion. He nodded without ever moving his forehead from Alex’s.

“It stopped,” he breathed, and without another word, he closed the distance between them and took Alex’s lips in his.

Alex moaned the second he felt the warmth of Michael’s mouth, though his hands wouldn’t move past his own lap.

_“Yeah,”_ that voice in his head went on. _“Let him do whatever he wants to you. ‘Cause this is all you’re good for, right? An epic night in bed.”_

Alex’s brows furrowed and he pushed himself harder against Michael, grabbing his waist and pulling him in, deepening the kiss and silencing the doubt.

_“Let’s see how things look in the morning,”_ the voice went on, and Alex could’ve sworn it sounded resigned. _“Shall we?”_

_Shut up_ , Alex thought, climbing onto Michael’s lap as Michael brought an arm around his hips.

“ _Baby_ ,” he breathed as Alex straddled him, kissing him more hungrily, more _desperately_ , with every passing second.

Alex bit Michael’s lower lip, sucked on his tongue, tried to turn every thought in his head to Michael. _Michael Michael Michael._ The Michael who’d held him tightly at the reunion, who’d told him that he never looked away, who always kissed Alex like he needed him to breathe.

_“He seemed to breathe fine with Maria.”_

_No_ , Alex shot back immediately and tore open Michael’s shirt. No, Michael was _his_. He cared about him.

_“Doesn’t care one way or another that you’re scared of yourself.”_

“Touch me,” Alex demanded against Michael’s lips. “I want to feel you for _days_ , Guerin.”

Michael licked his lips, his hands running up and down Alex’s waist before he slid them underneath his shirt. The touch against his naked skin cleared everything else away from Alex’s mind and he thought of nothing else but Michael’s beauty, his amazing scent, his heart hammering against Alex’s own.

“Yeah?” Michael said hazily, his rugged voice fueling the fire in Alex’s gut.

He pushed Michael’s shirt off his shoulders. “Yeah, baby. Touch me.”

Before Michael’s shirt even hit the ground, Michael used his powers to strip Alex bare. Michael wrapped an arm around his waist and steadied him as he shoved his jeans the rest of the way off. Alex’s mouth hung open as his cock grinded against the wiry hair on Michael’s stomach. Michael’s own cock leaking precum against Alex’s bellybutton.

Alex was transfixed, unable to look away from their erections and the delicious, filthy mess they were making, even as Michael seemed unable to get enough of touching his face, his broad shoulders, down his chest.

He closed his mouth around one of Alex’s nipples as his thumb scratched the other. Alex moaned and he held Michael’s head against his chest, his fingers tugging at the curls. Michael groaned around his nipple which made Alex buck his hips up.

“ _Alex_!” Michael all but screamed, clawing Alex’s hips and thrusting up against him. “I need you. It’s been –”

“— too long,” Alex panted, covering Michael’s mouth with his own, kissing him roughly.

The rest of Michael’s words were cut off as he thrusted up, his cock slapping against Alex’s, his stomach, the trail of hair. It was dirty, eager, hungry, _desperate_.

When Michael pulled back, his lips were glistening with spit and his eyes were hazed. “I – I don’t want to come yet –”

Alex bit his lower lip and pushed him down onto the bed, hovering over him, still thrusting their hips together. “Come, baby.” And he twisted one of Michael’s nipples, reveling in his scream. “We’re going all day.”

*

Michael ran the back of his fingers down Alex’s arm as he slept. He bit his lower lip and moved in closer as memories of the previous day and night flooded his mind. Alex’s hands on his body, his ass, pulling him in deeper, breathy moans in his ear, _pleading_ –

“ _Mmm_ ,” Michael groaned before he could help it. Part of him wanted to wake Alex up just so they could keep going. The other part, however, knew that Alex hadn’t had a peaceful night’s sleep in months, and he didn’t dare bother him.

But he’d never had so much stamina to touch and be touched before. He wanted Alex’s hands on him _all the time_. Was that an alien thing? No, it felt too much like everything had to do with Alex himself.

It was his beauty, his intelligence, his kindness. But there was also an anger as he’d held Michael, as he’d refused to let him go, as he’d attacked Michael’s lips again and again. Michael’s smile dimmed as he thought of his Alex, trying desperately to clear his head with the press of someone’s body against his. He wondered what might’ve happened if Alex had decided to go to a bar instead, let any asshole who wanted to touch him help him forget.

His arm tightened possessively around Alex’s waist and he pressed their foreheads together roughly. He knew he was hurting Alex, knew all of this had to be frustrating, but . . .

Michael’s brows furrowed. Was that a car coming into the junkyard? He leaned up on his elbow, his other arm tight around Alex’s waist, and holding him closely against him.

He hesitated for a long minute before he carefully made his way out of bed, threw on a shirt and pair of jeans, and slowly opened his door. He checked over his shoulder to make sure Alex was still asleep and stepped out just as Gregory climbed out of his car. He remembered Alex asking him with sheer hope in his eyes if Gregory had called. Dread rose in Michael’s chest.

“The shop’s not open yet,” he said.

Gregory’s shoulders fell. The dark circles around his eyes said he hadn’t slept at all last night. “Good. I’m here to talk about Alex.” He came up to Michael and stopped, his dark eyes unreadable. “Something’s going on with him.”

Michael clenched his jaw and sighed. “He told you.”

“He told me a – a lot,” Gregory said, running a hand through his hair. He began to pace. “Mostly, he showed me. He made a window right next to us shatter without even touching it.”

He shut his eyes, realization dawning. “The cuts.”

“I spent all day looking through the Project Shepherd archives, and _nothing_!” Gregory said. “Flint and Clay have been calling, and Alex is home right now because I told him to stay there.” He stopped and faced Michael. “Because I _promised_ him I’d fix this.”

Michael swallowed. He was thankful he’d closed the trailer door behind him, hiding the sleeping Alex. He tried not to let his heart sink, but the fact that not even the Project Shepherd files had any other information on the spaceship piece that he could use was a little more than discouraging.

Still, he straightened his shoulders and tried not to think of that. He’d figured it out, and he’d save Alex. He just needed a little more time.

“I know,” Michael said. “I know everything.”

Gregory stopped, considering him. “Alex told me how you reacted when he told you, what you’ve been saying to him.”

“It’s fake,” Michael said quietly, glancing over his shoulder again to make sure they weren’t being overheard. “It’s just a lie so that he wouldn’t worry about his powers.”

Gregory straightened his spine. _Ever the military man_ , Michael thought. What a family. “So you do believe he’s losing control of these . . . whatever they are?”

Michael crossed his arms. “Yeah. And I know it has something to do with the spaceship piece, which is why Liz has it now. Alex doesn’t know.”

He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “So there’s no chance you’ve already figured it out. Damn it.”

“I’m guessing Alex wanted you to come here, talk to me?” Michael said.

Gregory nodded. “He’s torn up about it because he thinks you don’t believe him.”

“ _Of course_ I believe him,” Michael said fiercely. “I’d believe anything Alex told me.”

He shook his head. “Then why –”

“The way Mr. Jones talked to him,” Michael cut him off. “It was like he needed Alex for something. I still don’t trust that guy, but Alex wants to see the good in him. He won’t listen.”

“Alex would never help Mr. Jones with _anything_ ,” Gregory said. “He’s good, not _stupid_.”

“But he’s stubborn, too, right?” Michael pressed. “He’ll keep fighting for whatever sliver of good he can find.” He shrugged a shoulder. “And maybe Mr. Jones does have that, but it’s not good enough. He’ll use Alex in whatever plan he has, and if Alex finds out he has powers, he’ll keep looking for answers, he’ll keep trying to use them to make everything better, but right now, they’re just . . .”

“Unstable,” Gregory finished, his brows furrowed. “He might end up making things worse.”

“I don’t really care about the world, Greg,” he said. “The earth can burn to ash for all I care. But Alex could hurt himself, could get himself . . .” he choked on the word, the possibility too ugly to consider for even a second. He inhaled deeply. “I’ll die before I let anything happen to him.”

Gregory’s eyes softened. “Something’s already happened, Guerin. He thinks he’s losing his mind.”

Michael clenched his jaw. “It’s only for a little longer, and then . . . and then I’ll tell him everything. H-He’ll be pissed for a few days. Maybe a few weeks. But it’s Alex. He always comes back.”

Gregory seemed to consider this, then, “Well, we still have a problem, because Alex is waiting back at his place, doing who knows what, and –”

“He’s not,” Michael said, looking over his shoulder. “Back at his place.”

Gregory’s eyes followed Michael’s to the airstream door. Realization dawned and he heaved a sigh into his palms. “Alex . . . you need to tell him to go home.”

“I _am_ his home,” Michael defended. “And . . . I can’t do that. I won’t have a lot of time left with him when he gets that call from you. And I’m not missing a second.”

Gregory frowned. “What call?”

*

Alex woke to Michael’s head between his thighs. What started off as faint moans turned louder and louder as Michael took him in all the way, as if eager for the taste of him. Needless to say, it was hard to think of anything else.

“M-Michael – _ah_ ,” Alex cut off as Michael sucked harder, making Alex’s head spin. He arched his back off the mattress, Michael grabbed whatever of him he could reach, his fingers digging into his ass as his other hand rose up his stomach, clawing through the trail of hair there.

Alex was dizzy with pleasure. He wanted Michael’s mouth on the places his hands touched, too, to feel Michael’s body against his. Michael hummed and the vibration sent Alex over the edge, his mouth hanging open. Michael was on him in an instant, devouring his mouth with his own.

Alex clung to his hips, keeping their cocks grinding together. When they pulled back to breathe, their hips still slapping together with a filthy, wet sound, Alex managed, “Eager.”

There was no humor in Michael’s voice when he responded, “Always eager for you.”

So they clung to each other, rolling around in bed, their bodies pressed firmly together. It wasn’t another two hours later when neither had the energy anymore, and Michael rolled only halfway off Alex as they panted heavily.

Michael traced Alex’s rising and falling chest with his fingers, transfixed with the gleaming sweat on his body.

“You’re so beautiful,” he said. “Have I ever told you that? How beautiful you are?”

Alex blushed, leaning down to press a kiss into Michael’s curls. “You always sound drunk after sex.”

He hummed, clinging tighter to Alex’s waist and making his heart race all over again. “Maybe I am.”

Alex huffed a chuckle. He ran a hand down Michael’s naked back and felt him shiver against him before moving in, pressing their bodies unbearably close together.

Michael kissed his nipple, and nuzzled his collarbone. Then he whispered, “Let’s just stay here forever.”

“What, in the airstream?”

“In this bed. We never have to get dressed, or talk to people we don’t wanna talk to. It can just be you and me forever.”

Alex hugged Michael’s shoulders and was rewarded with a faint whimper. “What would we eat?”

“I make a pretty good omelet,” he said, and Alex began to smile when a voice said –

_“It’s true. Just ask Maria.”_

Alex glanced over at the small mirror hanging on the wall, and found a tiny reflection leaning against the frame. Mirror Alex didn’t look amused or fond as he stared at Michael, his glowing eyes darker somehow.

_“Bet you didn’t know that, huh?”_ he said. _“He used to make breakfast for her._ After _he’d started parking his airstream in the Pony’s parking lot. But I guess it’s fine if he just recycles his old material. You’re only good for sex anyway, right?”_

He tensed, and Michael touched his jaw. “Hey,” he said. “What’s wrong, baby?”

Mirror Alex tilted his head at him. _“Tell him. I’m sure he’ll believe you this time.”_

Michael leaned up so that he was hovering right above Alex, their foreheads nearly pressed together. “Look at me.”

Alex forced his eyes away from his reflection, and looked up at Michael’s green eyes. He exhaled shakily, already able to feel the anger rising alongside the fondness, and he didn’t want it. He didn’t want to feel like he’d been feeling these past few days. He didn’t want to feel so . . . dark.

“Guerin,” he tried, “listen. I –”

_Bzzz Bzzz Bzzz!_

Alex and Michael were snapped out of their silence at Alex’s phone, vibrating somewhere in his pocket. His brows furrowed. Who’d be calling him now?

He reached for it, but Michael took his hand, interlocking their fingers a little too tightly. “Ignore it,” he said, kissing Alex’s palm, his wrist, his shoulder. “Just stay with me.”

“I’m right here,” Alex said, letting Michael pull him into another deep kiss even as his phone kept buzzing.

_“Wow,”_ Mirror Alex said. _“He really wants to keep you from answering that call. Wonder why.”_

Alex pulled back, but Michael kept kissing down his cheek, his jaw, his neck. “H-Hang on, Guerin, I should see who’s calling.”

He reached out for his jeans, rummaging in the pocket for his phone.

“No,” Michael said, pulling on his waist and making the task more difficult. “Ignore it, just – he’ll call again later.”

“He?” Alex frowned as he pulled out his phone. He narrowed his eyes at the name on the screen. He sat up slowly. “It’s Greg. How’d you . . .”

Michael looked away, his jaw clenched. Alex thought about the eager way he’d taken him that morning, as if savoring every second they had left. His heart hammered painfully as dread rose in his chest. He swung his leg off the bed and reached for his prosthetic as he held the phone between his ear and shoulder.

“Greg?” he said, hearing the apprehension in his own voice. “What’s going on? What’ve you found?”

His brother sighed. “Nothing, Alex. I’ve looked through the archives a hundred times, I can’t find anything on the spaceship giving anyone powers.”

Alex pulled his jeans on. “O-Okay, that’s fine. I’ll just come down and look myself. Maybe I can ask Liz, maybe she’ll know –”

“Listen, little brother,” Gregory cut him off. “I think . . . maybe Michael was right. You know? Maybe – maybe you’re just overworked.”

Alex shut his eyes, pressing the phone to his temple as Gregory’s voice sounded from the other line. He clenched his jaw, his grip on his phone tight.

Mirror Alex tilted his head at Michael, his glowing eyes filled with hatred. _“And now we know why.”_

Alex pulled on his shirt and grabbed his jacket. Gregory sounded grim, like he was so worried about his crazy brother.

“I mean, you said it yourself, right?” he went on. “You haven’t been sleeping at all. I think . . . maybe if you –”

“Gregory,” he said through grit teeth. “You _saw_ the window break!”

“There was a storm,” Gregory said readily, like he’d had the answer prepared. “A strong wind, lightning. Any number of things could’ve cause it, Alex.”

_“Any number of things,”_ Mirror Alex mocked distastefully.

“Alex,” his brother said, “listen, I know you’re frustrated, but –”

Alex hung up, cutting him off. Outside, he could hear rain falling, the morning sunlight that had been pouring in now replaced with a gradual darkness as the sky turned to a blanket of gray clouds. His eyes burned, a lump in his throat made it hard for him to breathe.

_“You know who to blame,”_ Mirror Alex said in a sing-song voice.

He turned to Michael. “What did you do?” he growled. “WHAT DID YOU DO?!”

Michael stood. He didn’t seem surprised. “Nothing –”

“WHAT DID YOU SAY TO HIM?!”

“I didn’t say _anything_.”

Mirror Alex scoffed. _“He’s lying to your face.”_

Alex breathed heavily. Horrifically, he felt like he might cry. “To me?” he croaked. “You’re lying to _me_?”

Michael raised his hands, hesitant. “Gregory told me that he couldn’t find anything because there’s nothing to find. I – I could sense if you had powers, and you _don’t_ , okay? I know you want a different answer, but you just don’t!”

_“Then how do_ I _exist?”_ Mirror Alex asked from behind them.

“I don’t want a different answer, Guerin, I just want the truth!”

“That _is_ the truth!”

He shook his head. “No. You keep lying, _why_?” Michael clenched his jaw and looked away. Alex tried to meet his eyes. “I know you, Guerin, I know when you’re lying.”

Michael wouldn’t look at Alex, wouldn’t answer him. Alex wanted to shake him, to beg him to listen.

“I can’t believe,” he said darkly, “that Mr. Jones is more honest than you.”

Michael’s head snapped to him, looking at Alex like he’d been shot.

“ _Alex_ . . .” he breathed.

The reflection was gone. It was just Alex and Michael now, and somewhere deep down, Alex knew he regretted the words. But nothing seemed to matter beyond the anger expanding in his chest, the same as the veins stretching out from Mirror Alex’s eyes, as if trying to take in, to _control_ , as much of him as possible.

And it was working.

Michael’s eyes grew darker, too, though he looked more hurt than angry. “You’d rather listen to _him_ than me?”

Alex should’ve denied it, should’ve apologized, should’ve held Michael until the pain went away and promised he didn’t mean it. But he was so tired of caring about people who didn’t seem to care about him.

“He tells me the truth,” he said cruelly, and a twisted part of him was satisfied at whatever broke inside Michael then. “So yeah, Guerin. I’d rather listen to him.”

And he turned and pushed the door open, not caring that a full-fledged storm had started. His jaw was clenched and lightning flashed overhead. Michael never followed, and Alex wished he was disappointed. But this was what Michael did. He didn’t fight for Alex, he didn’t care to fight. Alex climbed into his car, the thunder booming overhead.

He wasn’t going home, wasn’t planning to. He needed answers, and if nobody else would help him, then he had someone else he hoped might.

“Well, I’m honored to be chosen,” Mr. Jones said. “I didn’t think someone like you ever needed help.”

Alex stopped pacing. “Someone like me?”

He shrugged. “Air Force captain, strong and independent. Ain’t that the whole _Manes Men_ motto?”

He sounded cocky, amused even, but he couldn’t fool Alex. He kept trying to roll his shoulders, to keep under the warmth of Alex’s single jacket. His fists were clenched like he couldn’t move his fingers. He was freezing. He’d gone from one prison in the caves to another. Some part of Alex wondered if he didn’t deserve worse, but right now, all he saw was a man suffering for no real reason. It felt cruel.

However, that’s not what he said out loud. Instead, he muttered, “Everyone needs help sometimes.”

He sat down against the cave wall, rubbing his face. Mr. Jones said nothing a moment, then, “You don’t . . . you’re not like the others.”

He let his head fall back. “What do you mean?”

“You don’t seem scared of me.”

“You’re not scary,” Alex said. Mr. Jones was silent a moment longer.

Then he cleared his throat, and said, “That’s why you’re here? You think I can help you?”

“I think you already have,” he said, unable to help the edge creeping into his voice. “You’ve been more honest with me than anybody else has.”

Alex blinked from his thoughts and covered his mouth with his hand. “I – I didn’t mean that, I –”

“Okay, you need to stop doing that,” Mr. Jones said with no small amount of amusement. Like Alex was _cute_ or something. “Stop shovin’ it down, and let yourself get _angry_. You _are_ angry, aren’t you?”

Alex shook his head. “I’m frustrated,” he said. “It’s different.”

“Just what do you think is gonna happen?” he asked. “You admit that the cowboy’s pissing you off, and you’ll go nuclear? Start beating people like your daddy?”

“That’s – that’s not –”

“ _You_ , better than anybody, know that nothing is that black and white.”

“But –”

“Feels like it’s festerin’ inside, doesn’t it?” he said, and Alex fell silent. “Like there’s this growing darkness, eatin’ away at you. That guy you keep seein’ in the mirror –”

“How did you –”

“—he’s the anger. Trying to get out.”

Alex shook his head, standing. “So I was right. He _is_ evil.”

“No, Alex, _no_ ,” he said, leaning forward eagerly in his seat. “You keep missin’ it because you’re trying so hard to be what Michael Guerin wants you to be. You’re scared getting angry will push him away, and it _will_. Because your anger is powerful, and he thinks you’re _weak_.”

He swallowed. “That’s not true.”

“No?” he smiled with a sort of pity. “Then why hasn’t he told you that that damn spaceship piece is with Liz?”

Alex stilled. There was no mockery in Mr. Jones’s expression. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse. “He gave it to Liz?”

“And after he promised you he’d work on it,” he said. “He just hands it over to someone else.”

“Why?” Alex stood. The cavern floor shook beneath him. “Why wouldn’t he tell me?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Mr. Jones said. “He doesn’t trust you. He thinks you’ll ask for it back, or try to take it for yourself.”

Alex clenched his jaw. He shook his head, his eyes burning. “No, I – he did it to help me –”

“Help you how?” he demanded immediately. “He doesn’t believe you have powers, remember?”

But Alex couldn’t process it. He couldn’t believe that Michael would think so low of him. “How do you know all of this? This is beyond listening in through the piece. I-It’s weird, we didn’t meet that long ago, we didn’t even _talk_ to each other, but something about you feels . . . familiar.”

“Well,” he tilted his head. “I do look a tad like your healing friend.”

“No,” Alex said immediately. “I know that’s not it. And I think you know it, too. How do you know so much about me?”

“Because we’re connected,” he smiled, like the thought pleased him. Alex stepped back. “We’ve been connected since the day those three let me out. Only to lock me back up, but,” he shrugged. “Details.”

Alex stared. “What does that mean? Being connected to . . .”

He raised a brow. “Someone like me?”

Alex looked away. “I wasn’t going to say it like that.”

He huffed a chuckle, shaking his head. For a second, Alex thought he saw a fondness in his eyes. He had to have seen wrong.

“It means that we’ll be strongest when we’re together. Here,” he said, “put your hand on my shoulder.”

Alex took another step back. Mr. Jones didn’t seem to like that. “You want to stop this storm or not? Some of us can’t stand any more cold.”

Alex hesitated. Mr. Jones’s lips were starting to turn blue, his body shivering ever so slightly. What harm could touching him for a second do?

He reached out, and placed his hand on Mr. Jones’s shoulder. His shirt was cold, his skin beneath colder.

“Right,” said Mr. Jones with a gentility Alex hadn’t known he was capable of. “Now. Take a deep breath, and imagine sunlight.”

Alex focused his thoughts, thinking it would be harder than it was. But almost instantly, he felt a warmth surge through him and the sound of the thundering storm outside stopped. He exhaled steadily for what felt like the first time in months, and Mr. Jones’s skin beneath his fingers turned warm and dry.

Alex’s eyes closed as he brought his other hand up, all but cradling Mr. Jones’s face, their foreheads pressed together. He could feel Mr. Jones’s steady pulse under his touch where it had been heavier before. Alex was allowed to breathe now, allowed to feel whatever he felt without walking a fine line, allowed to be resentful and angry and cry without feeling weak. He could hear that melodious voice of the spaceship piece, singing in his ears and beckoning him closer. He was accepted here, every dark part of him. And he wanted to give into that darkness.

“Alex . . .” Mr. Jones breathed. Alex was snapped out of his thoughts. He opened his eyes and stepped back, the singing gone. The rain had stopped and the cave was so much warmer than when he’d first come in, but something felt wrong. He felt . . . dirty somehow.

“C’mere,” Mr. Jones said. He, like Alex, was breathing heavily. “Alex, it’s okay. It’s okay, come on.”

“No,” Alex shook his head, stepping back and nearly stumbling on the rock. “No, I – I won’t do this. Not like this.”

Mr. Jones’s eyes darkened. “You think Michael will listen to you? You think he’ll help you? He doesn’t even trust you, Alex! None of them do!”

“You’re wrong,” Alex breathed. “You’re wrong, they – they know me. They do trust me. And I won’t break that trust by taking your word over theirs.”

He turned and left, Mr. Jones’s calls to him to come back getting to him more than he was willing to admit.

*

Before Max had even entered the cave, he felt something was off. There was a warmth here that shouldn’t have been, almost entrancing in its weight. For a second as he walked inside, Max felt like he might just curl up against the rocky ground and go to sleep. Something was wrong.

He pushed past his haze of thoughts and hurried into the chamber where Mr. Jones sat, not looking at all troubled or tired. Nothing like the man who’d been chained in the freezing cold. He sat up straight in his chair now, as if it was a comfortable armchair and not a piece of steel imbedded in the rock. His cheeks were rosy and his eyes bright.

Something was _very_ wrong.

“Maximo!” he smiled widely. “Good morning. Or is it noon? I can’t really tell time down here.”

Max carefully rattled Mr. Jones’s chains to make sure they were holding. They were. He looked around. There was no poor victim lying dead, drained of all their energy. There was no reason Mr. Jones should’ve looked as healthy as he did.

“What’d you do?” he demanded.

Mr. Jones shrugged. “Nothing much, just hanging around. Not a lot to do in here, you know.”

He shook his head. “No, you – you look stronger. You’re not supposed to look stronger. What’d you do?”

Mr. Jones kept his eyes on Max as he began to laugh, like he knew something Max didn’t. It unnerved him. The laugh was chaotic, hysterical, amused to hell and back, and Max couldn’t take it anymore.

He grabbed Mr. Jones by the collar and shook him. “WHAT’D YOU DO?! WHO’D YOU HURT?! TELL ME!”

Mr. Jones’s dark eyes twinkled. “Why?” he laughed. “You won’t miss ‘em.”

Max growled, rearing his fist back to wipe that frightening smirk off Mr. Jones’s face. “Son of a . . .” He trailed off, his eyes falling to the jacket that had fallen off Mr. Jones’s shoulders. He frowned.

Mr. Jones’s smile faltered as Max released him and picked up the jacket.

“Hey,” he growled, “don’t touch that –”

“This is Alex’s,” he said. “Isn’t it?”

Mr. Jones lunged towards the jacket, but as powerful as he was, he was still restrained. “GIVE IT BACK! THAT’S MINE!”

“No,” Max breathed. “It’s Alex’s. How’d you get it? If you hurt Alex –”

Mr. Jones turned such a glare of hatred on Max that it almost startled him. “I would _never_ hurt Alex. He gave it to me when he came to see me. It’s mine!”

Max’s brows furrowed. “He didn’t give it to you. I was here, he didn’t give you anything.”

Mr. Jones’s lip curled darkly. “Then I guess you weren’t here.”

Max stepped back. “Alex came to see you without telling us? Why?”

“Because he knows I’m the only one who’ll tell him the truth,” he said. “He’s better, Maximo. Better than any of you. He’s so much more _powerful_ , and _I_ am the only one that appreciates that.”

Max leaned in, threatening. “You stay away from him.”

His grin widened. “You can’t keep us apart –”

Max took a syringe full of yellow pollen from his pocket and jabbed it into Mr. Jones’s leg. He screamed out, his head ducked as he heaved.

When he looked up at Max, however, he was still smiling. “He’s gonna get me out of this, and we’ll be together . . . and the first piece of the earth to burn will be this stupid little town. And I’ll kill you last . . . just so you can watch.”

Max shook his head. “Alex would never help you.”

Mr. Jones began to laugh again, hoarse and out of breath this time, but the same dark amusement there in the twinkle of his black eyes. “Oh, he’ll help. Whether he knows it or not, he’ll help.”

*

Michael parked in front of Max’s house to find Liz, Isobel, and Maria’s cars already there. He opened the front door and saw Isobel on the couch with Maria, both of them holding what looked like a jacket in their hands, as if trying to read an invisible riddle on the fabric. Max was pacing the living room while Liz followed, trying to calm him down.

“That could’ve meant anything,” she said. “You know how he is, he can’t see anyone hurt!”

“Liz is right,” Maria said. “Remember when he saw his dad in the hospital? If he could pity the man that beat him his whole life –”

“But he didn’t just pity him, did he?” Max demanded. “He _listened_ to him. He let him get in his head.”

“Yeah,” Isobel said uncertainly. “But Alex?”

“What’s going on?” Michael said, breaking the unsteady stream of conversation. “What about Alex?”

Max glanced at Isobel, hesitant. Then, “We found out Alex has been visiting Mr. Jones by himself.”

Michael frowned, heading to the couch. The jacket looked familiar now. “What’re you doing with Alex’s jacket?”

“He gave it to him, Michael,” Isobel said. “To keep warm.”

“Oh, come on,” Liz said. “The way you guys were keeping Mr. Jones locked up in that cave, it’s no wonder Alex felt a little bad for him.”

Michael took Alex’s jacket from Isobel. He gripped it tightly, imagining it on Alex’s shoulders. Hadn’t he been wearing this the day he’d first started a storm at the Crashdown? The day he’d begged Michael to listen to him, and Michael had been forced to lie.

_So that’s where he went._

“You think Alex would betray us?”

“No,” Max said immediately. “I don’t think he’d do it on purpose.” He sighed, frustration coloring his voice. “But Mr. Jones seemed so sure that Alex would help him, that he’d set him free. What if he tricks him somehow?”

“Alex is the smartest guy I know,” Michael said. “He wouldn’t let anyone trick him.”

“But what if he’s pushed into a corner?” Max insisted. “What if he thinks Mr. Jones is the only help he has?”

Michael clenched his jaw. _“He tells me the truth. So yeah, Guerin. I’d rather listen to him.”_

“Look,” Max said, “this has gotten out of hand. I get that you’re trying to protect him, but maybe it’s time to just tell the truth –”

“No,” Michael said immediately. “No, I’m not risking him looking into any more of this, he could be a lot worse off.”

Liz folded her arms. “Maria looked into her powers, and she made it out.”

“This is _Alex_ ,” he said fiercely. “I’m not taking that chance.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Maria flinch, but he couldn’t bring himself to regret it. It was the truth, and after days of lying to Alex’s face, he needed to be honest now.

“He can’t know,” he insisted.

“Then how are we going to know what Mr. Jones told him?” Max said. “What if he said something that got to him?”

Liz looked up. “Alex keeps a log on his computer. He has detailed notes of everything Mr. Jones does and says, he was giving them to me for research.”

“ _Was_?” Max asked.

She shook her head. “He stopped sending them about three days ago. I asked why, but he never answered.”

“So, what?” Isobel frowned. “You’re saying we ask him for his computer?”

“No,” Maria said. “It’ll break his heart. It’ll look like we don’t trust him.”

“Then what’re we having this conversation for?” Isobel said. “Why don’t we just ask Alex what they said? I’m sure he’d tell us.”

“And if he doesn’t?” Maria demanded. “This is a psychotic alien we’re talking about, what if we only have one shot to get the truth?”

“Everyone stop!” Michael snapped. He was staring down at the jacket in his hands. _Alex . . ._ “I’ll get into Alex’s computer and see what he wrote.”

“You mean sneak in?” Liz gaped. “You can’t do that, it’ll break his heart!”

“ _Especially_ if it comes from you, Michael,” Isobel said.

“And what’s the alternative?” Maria said. “Interrogate Alex about it? Make him feel like a criminal?”

“And breaking into his research is better?!”

“No,” Max said. “Michael, no, if something goes wrong –”

“If Alex _ever_ finds out –” Isobel started.

“I’ll be quick,” Michael said, a lump in his throat making it hard to breathe, let alone speak. “He’ll . . . he’ll trust me to let me in. I can get to his computer from there.”

Everyone was silent for a long time. Then Max said, “Michael . . . I don’t like this plan, but . . . whatever Mr. Jones is planning, we need to stop it.”

“I know that –”

“ _No_ ,” he said. “No, I mean you didn’t see the way he talked about Alex. It was possessive, he tried to attack me just for touching that jacket. It’s like he’s . . . in love with him or something.”

Michael clenched his jaw, his grip painfully tight on the jacket. “Then that settles it,” he said quietly, darkly. “We end this fast. That bastard’s not going near my Alex again.”

Alex wasn’t answering any of Michael’s calls or texts. It wasn’t something he ever did, even when they weren’t really talking. If Michael needed him, Alex was there, always alert, always ready. And Michael needed him now. But Alex wasn’t picking up.

It occurred to Michael, maybe a little too late, as he sat parked in front of Alex’s house, that there was someone in there who needed him a little more. That this, what he’d planned to do, was a betrayal of who he was, and what he and Alex were supposed to be.

_It’s for his own good,_ the thought visited again, and Michael swallowed back the opposing doubt. Maria had nearly died. Alex was more valuable. Nothing could hurt Alex so long as Michael was there to protect him.

Michael steeled his nerves as he approached Alex’s front door and knocked. He stepped back, ready for anger, ready for hatred. There was an incessant guilt that seemed to cover everything else like a blanket, but there was very little he could do to push that away.

The door cracked open a sliver, enough for Michael to see only half of his airman, and he realized there was one thing he hadn’t been prepared for. _Exhaustion._

He knew Alex had been angry the last time he’d seen him, but had he looked like he was a breath away from collapsing? His skin was pale, the dark circles around his eyes nearly black, his hair a mess like he’d been pulling at it for days. Beneath his papery skin, Michael could’ve sworn he saw Alex’s . . . veins?

“ _Alex_ ,” he breathed, unable to say anything else.

Alex squinted, as if the sunlight pained him. His eyes weren’t dark brown anymore, but almost a bright hazel. Michael had woken up next to Alex often enough to know that his eyes turned multicolored in the rising morning light only. Something about this light around his pupils felt different, almost . . . haunting.

“What do you want?” was Alex’s cold greeting. His voice was hoarse, like he’d been screaming for hours at the top of his lungs.

Michael took a deep, trembling breath. “I believe you.”

Alex stopped glancing around at the birds as they flew past, at every rustle of tree branches as if they were an enemy, at the dead leaves as they crackled against one another. And his eyes seemed to finally focus on Michael.

Michael was suddenly nervous, his heart hammering against his ribcage. Alex, after all, had always been able to read him so easily. Would he see through Michael now? Would he know there was more to what he was telling him? Michael imagined him scoffing, getting furious at the lie, demanding to know the truth.

But things with Alex must’ve been a lot worse than he thought because Alex’s eyes widened in a kind of fearful hope, and he said, “Really?”

The crack in his voice, the way his brows knit together like he was struggling to see Michael at all but was fighting to try, the way his lower lip quivered – it broke Michael’s heart. He was so close to confessing everything on the spot, to telling Alex why he was really there. But instead –

“Yeah, Private,” he said. “I believe you. About everything.” He took a step closer to the door. “Let me help you,” he pleaded, the truth mixing with the lie and creating a mess in Michael’s head that he told himself he’d unravel later. All that mattered now was protecting Alex.

He clenched his jaw when Alex only stared, searching for the lie.

“I know,” he started, looking down, “I know I’ve let you down, and I know you needed me, but I swear, Alex, you were never supposed to get –”

But Michael’s words were cut off as Alex swung open the door and tackled him in a hug, his arms tight around Michael’s shoulders. His body was trembling.

“I knew you’d believe me,” Alex whispered against his shirt, his hold unbearably tight. “I knew you’d be here for me.”

A lump formed in Michael’s throat that forbade him from answering. He wordlessly brought his arms up to hug Alex’s back, wanting more than anything to feel his body, keep him steady, keep him safe. But a voice in the back of his head, warning him that he didn’t deserve to, kept his arms down. He gripped Alex’s waist and waited for him to let go.

“Alex,” he managed, and Alex pulled back. Up close, Michael could see the veins on his face and neck and arms more clearly. Alex’s hands were still shaking on his shoulders, and Michael couldn’t let his hands fall from his waist.

“W-We – should we go to the bunker? M-Maybe it’s safer there? Or maybe find a desert so – so no one could get hurt? If we’re going to test it, we – we should do it somewhere far, right?”

“Hey, _hey_ ,” Michael held him still. When Alex’s eyes kept darting, Michael took his face in his hands, forcing his gaze to focus. “Look at me.” The words felt heavy on his tongue, like even they knew this was a betrayal and wanted no part in lying to Alex. “Why don’t we – uh – why don’t we go inside, and you can tell me everything?”

Alex was already starting to shake his head. “But I already told you –”

“From the beginning,” Michael insisted. “Y-You can tell me from the beginning. Maybe there’s an answer somewhere there that you missed.”

Alex considered it. “Yeah,” he muttered, his brows knit. “Yeah, I – sure. Yeah, that’s better.”

Michael swallowed as he brushed a dark strand back from Alex’s eyes. “Makes sense, right?”

Alex nodded, covering Michael’s hands with his own, as if desperate for the contact. “Y-yeah, yeah, you’re right, of course you’re right. Come on, come in.”

Alex kept running a hand through his already messy hair as he led Michael inside. The hall was so dark, he couldn’t have known what he would find in the rest of the house. He stopped at the doorway to the living room. Along the walls were faint cracks, the furniture either broken in half or almost shredded apart. Flower vases were broken and there were damp spots on the carpets. Everything but the one long mirror on the wall was ruined.

Alex looked pained, pulling at his hair like he was trying to remember how he’d done any of this. “I – I didn’t mean to.”

Michael’s eyes were wide. He wanted, more than anything, to pull Alex in against him in a bone-crushing hug. But he wasn’t here to comfort Alex, he was here to steal information from him, to make sure Mr. Jones hadn’t gotten to him. He was here because some part of him didn’t trust Alex to stand his ground.

In the end, all he could do was grasp Alex’s shoulder. “Let’s just sit down, okay? And you can tell me everything.”

Alex bit his lower lip and looked around. The couch was torn into, but it was in better shape than anything else. Alex, Michael noticed, was limping more heavily.

He put a hand on his back as they sat down. “When’s the last time you took that thing off?”

Alex frowned, like he was trying to remember. “Uh – I don’t . . .” He moved closer to Michael, their legs pressed together. “When I was with you?”

“And before that?”

Alex shook his head, his brows twitching. “I don’t remember – please, stop asking me. L-Let me just tell you what happened.”

“Okay,” Michael said, running a hand up and down Alex’s back, if only to help soothe him. “Okay, Alex.” He licked his lips and glanced around. Then he saw it. The kitchen that was attached to the living room was a mess, too, but on the counter, closed and forgotten under broken ceramic plates, was Alex’s laptop.

Michael’s thoughts came to a still when Alex’s forehead fell onto his shoulder. He heaved a sigh. “I knew you’d come.” His hand, rising Michael’s chest, was making it hard for Michael to think clearly. “I knew it.”

Michael’s eyes started to flutter as Alex’s hot breath fanned his neck, but then –

_“You didn’t see the way he talked about Alex. It’s like he’s . . . in love with him or something.”_

Michael woke from his thoughts. Mr. Jones wanted Alex, whether that was for one big plan or just as someone to have, he _wanted_ him. Michael couldn’t let anyone have him.

“Hey,” he said, holding Alex back. “ _Hey_ , look at me, baby. You’re safe now, okay?” He pushed his hair back from his eyes. “You’re _safe_ now.” He hesitated a split second. “I’m here, I’m not gonna let anything happen to you.”

Alex exhaled sharply and nodded. “Yeah,” he breathed. “Yeah, I know.”

“Okay,” he said, choosing his words carefully now. “So why don’t you go change, take off the prosthetic –”

“But –”

“Alex, you’re in pain,” he insisted. “You keep rubbing your leg.”

“I can’t rest now, Guerin,” he said.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Michael said. He held Alex’s face tightly, his thumb brushing the airman’s cheek. “I’m right here. Go wash up, change into something more comfortable –”

“ _Guerin_ –”

“And I’ll be right here when you get back,” he said. “Look at me, I’m not leaving you.”

Alex grabbed Michael’s wrists. His skin was like ice, and it made Michael’s heart thud painfully. His beautiful Alex. He was going to _kill_ Mr. Jones, and he was going to make it _hurt_.

“I don’t need to change.”

“Yes, you do,” he said. “You need to get off that leg.”

Alex hesitated. “Can’t we at least talk about my dream first? M-Maybe –”

“We can do it later, Alex,” he said firmly. Alex was starting to twitch again, like a dam keeping back an ocean, barely holding itself together. The question was, what was he fighting so hard to keep back?

“Okay,” he whispered, nodding a little frantically. “Okay, I’ll – yeah, I’ll go – b-but you won’t leave?”

Michael tightened his grip on Alex slightly before he forced himself to let go and plastered on a smile. “I’d never leave you, Private. I’m gonna help you, remember?”

That seemed to reassure Alex, and he stood. He moved slowly to the corridor and stopped by the large mirror on the wall. He tilted his head slightly as if it was speaking to him, and he looked over his shoulder at Michael, his expression, to Michael’s surprise, confused and doubtful. But whatever was bothering Alex, he seemed to push it down, and he went into the hall to where his bedroom was.

Michael waited to hear a door open and close, and he rushed as quietly as he could to the kitchen, gently pushed aside the debris on the laptop’s surface, and opened the computer. He kept glancing into the hall for any sign or sound of Alex.

Michael tapped his finger impatiently on the kitchen counter as the screen loaded. Then he was on the home screen. Michael searched Alex’s gallery (nothing), his music and videos (nothing but some old songs saved from over a year ago), and lastly his coding files.

Finally, he found a file labeled, _Mr. Jones_ , and opened it _._ His heart thrashed wildly in his chest as he surveyed the contents. Alex made it sound like Mr. Jones had been a stray cat he’d found and was trying to nurse back to health, probably for anyone who dared sneak into his private reports. Always so cautious.

_Yeah_ , a voice taunted, _because it’s_ you _. He’s not going to put_ you _at risk. You know that._

Michael did know that. But it didn’t stop him from scrolling, his eyes rapidly scanning the file. His shoulders fell. These reports dated back to Alex’s first visit to Mr. Jones with Michael, his siblings, and Liz. It was all theory or speculation as to what he might’ve intended, all written in codes so government officials wouldn’t know what it meant.

Then there were reports dating to Alex’s second visit. His last, it seemed, was dated to when Alex had taken his secret visit, but it was more talk about Mr. Jones’s physical, mental, and emotional condition, all things that only Liz might find helpful. But Alex had stopped sending them around the time his powers had started to really spiral out of control.

Michael swallowed past the lump in his throat. The time recorded on each report was in the middle of the night. He imagined Alex, distressed and unable to sleep because of those terrifying nightmares, force himself to write something down to send for Liz’s research, to be useful.

“What’re you doing?”

Michael whipped around. Alex was standing in the doorway to the kitchen, staring at the open computer in front of Michael with furrowed brows.

“I . . .” Michael tried. He was sure his heart had stopped. “Alex . . .”

But what was there for him to say? Alex seemed to have already discovered the truth, his dark eyes narrowed with betrayal even as tears fell.

Alex was crying. “Guerin, what are you doing?”

Michael could hear his own shallow, rapid breathing in his ears. He held up his hands slowly. He took a step towards Alex. “We thought that . . . we worried that Mr. Jones had . . . gotten into your head –”

“You thought I’d help him without telling you?”

“No,” he said immediately.

“Then why were you looking through my computer?” Alex demanded, his voice rising, his expression turning angrier behind the tears.

“You’re tired,” Michael tried. “You’re – you’re not sleeping, Alex, and he plays with people’s minds, that’s what he does.”

“No, _you_ play with people’s minds!” Alex said. He shook his head, hurt. “You were never going to help me, were you? You just wanted to make sure I didn’t let him get to me. That I didn’t put you at risk.” He huffed a sob. “ _Me._ ”

“Alex,” Michael croaked. He hated that look in Alex’s eyes, that blatant _hatred_ that had never once been directed at him, no matter how many times he’d screwed up in the past. Alex was always forgiving. But this, he could tell, was unforgiveable.

Alex glared. “You want to know what Mr. Jones told me, Guerin? You want to know what I didn’t put in that report? He said you didn’t trust me. He said none of you really trusted me. _None_ of you saw the good in me. And I told him . . . I told him he was wrong. I told him he didn’t know you like I did, that if _anyone_ saw the good, it was you. But he was right.”

“No,” Michael whispered. He took another step closer. “No! That’s not true! Why I came hasn’t changed, I’m still trying to help you!”

“Shut up!” Alex snapped, covering his ears. “I’m done listening to you, you don’t see anything else in the mirror!”

“Yes, I do!” Michael tried. “You’re . . . you’re Alex, you’re kind and _good_ and so smart –”

“Stop it stop it STOP IT!” he screamed. “You’re nothing but a liar, you’re just a LIAR!” The windows shattered and the door swung off its hinges as a strong wind like a hurricane blew in, nearly knocking Michael off his feet.

Michael gripped the counter to steady himself. Alex looked unbothered by the wind as it whipped his hair and clothes around. His veins were brighter under his skin, as were his eyes. Something about the color . . .

“ALEX!” Michael tried calling over the wind. “ALEX, STOP THIS! YOU’RE GOING TO GET HURT!”

Alex glared at Michael with such an intensity that it made Michael sick. Alex, _his_ Alex, was looking at him like he hated him.

“I think you’d be happy to see me hurt,” Alex said darkly, _quietly_ , yet somehow Michael could hear him perfectly over the wind. Like he ruled the storm, not the other way around. “See me dead. I think all you care about is yourself, Michael.”

“ _I love you_!” Michael screamed. “Alex, you have to see that! You know it, you’ve always known it, better than anyone!” He swallowed back a sob. “Even me!”

The storm grew stronger, Alex’s edges turned dark, like he was a ghost, struggling to stay connected to the living world. “Alex,” he breathed, and held out his hand. “ALEX! TAKE MY HAND! QUICKLY!”

Alex didn’t move.

“ALEX,” he moved closer despite the storm, but it was like there was a forcefield around Alex now, keeping Michael at arm’s length. Michael couldn’t breathe, he was panicking. “ALEX! YOU’RE GOING TO DISAPPEAR IF YOU DON’T HOLD ONTO ME!” Tears sprung to his eyes. “PLEASE, BABY, TAKE MY HAND! COME ON, ALEX, TAKE MY HAND!”

Michael beat at the forcefield with everything he had. “Alex, please,” he cried. “I’m sorry, please, just – please give me your hand. I love you so much, I want you to stay with me, please. Please, baby, please give me your hand.”

“Lies,” Alex whispered. Then – “YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT LOVE IS! Love burns. And if it’s hurt, it kills.”

Michael was roughly thrown back and slammed into the opposite wall. Alex looked down on him with no hint of concern or fear. It was then Michael realized what Alex had been trying so hard to hold back. Evil.

“You think I’m a monster, Michael?” he said quietly, and as his eyes glowed brighter, a familiar gold and pink and purple, the rest of him turned dark. “Then there’s no point fighting to be anything else.”

Michael understood too late what was going to happen, and he moved to stand. “ALEX, NO!”

But it was too late. The wind whipped more fiercely than ever, and Michael had to look away. When he looked back, Alex was gone.

“Then look again!” Michael snapped into his phone as he broke every speeding law there was, barreling down the road. “The Crashdown, the Pony, I don’t care! Just look everywhere!”

“He just _vanished_?!” Max asked for what felt like the millionth time. “How did he vanish, Michael?!”

“I don’t know, it’s something about those powers the spaceship gave him,” he said, thinking of Alex’s eyes, his veins, the way he’d twitched as if someone was constantly speaking to him.

“Max,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady and failing. “Check the caves, too.”

“I’m already on my way,” Max said through the phone. Somewhere in the background, Michael could hear Isobel and Liz arguing over where they should go look next. Michael hung up the call first, not wanting to hear anymore.

He tapped his finger restlessly on the steering wheel, unconsciously pushing cars out of his way when he got too close to swerve. The clouds were pitch black now, the storm nearly murderous. Lightning flashed and thunder boomed, strong enough to shake Michael’s truck. Michael checked the place in the desert he and Alex had gone to when they were teenagers, the UFO museum, even where the toolshed used to be behind Alex’s family house.

_My fault_ , he thought, his eyes burning and knowing he didn’t have the time to shed a tear. _This is all my fault._ He couldn’t forget the look on Alex’s face when he’d found him, the legitimate shock and disappointment, as if he’d never expected Michael to be the one to betray him.

And he thought Michael saw him as no different than his father. If anything, the only one between them who’d been anything like Jesse was –

A thought struck and Michael nearly swerved off the road. He knew where to go.

Michael had barely parked in front of the bunker before he was running to the steel doors. He forced them open like they were leaves in the wind and climbed down into the darkness. Automatic white lights turned on as he touched the ground, and for a moment, he saw only ruin.

Alex’s research had all been either torn or burned, the computers were shattered, glass and machinery all over the floors.

The shadows in the corners reminded Michael of Alex, the way he’d turned to shadow himself before he’d disappeared.

Then he saw him; crouched behind the desk, invisible to anyone who didn’t look closely enough, was Alex.

His clothes were torn in places, cuts along his skin leaving blood seeping into his jeans and jacket. Alex stared ahead, unseeing, as he hugged his knees to his chest.

“Alex,” Michael breathed. He was dripping from his curls and the tip of his nose, but he didn’t care. He pulled Alex into his arms. Alex didn’t hug him back, or touch his waist, or even move.

Michael faltered and pulled back, keeping Alex in his arms. “Hey, look at me. Alex, look at me.”

Alex didn’t. He couldn’t even seem to _hear_ him. A horrible thought occurred. What if Alex’s outburst had broken his mind somehow? What if the powers had been too strong for his human body and it had disintegrated him from the inside?

“Baby,” he whispered, taking Alex’s face in his hands and kissing his forehead, hoping it would help wake him. It didn’t. Michael started to panic. “Alex, please look at me. I’m right here, look at me.”

But Alex was still staring ahead, straight through Michael as if he didn’t exist.

“Listen to me,” he tried. “I love you. I’m gonna help you, okay?”

“Hear that, Alex?” a voice said, and Michael looked up. “He’s gonna help you!”

Mr. Jones stood against the wall, rubbing his wrists as if still pained by the chains that had once held him. Michael’s phone rang in his pocket, but he didn’t answer. He had a feeling he knew what the call was about. Michael wished he could be completely surprised, but part of him had been expecting this. Not that Mr. Jones and his plans mattered right now. All Michael cared about was Alex.

He stood slowly, keeping in reach of Alex. “How’d you get out?” he said quietly.

“Alex,” Mr. Jones said, smiling fondly at Alex as if he found this stagnant state adorable and not frightening. “ _You_ ,” he said to Michael, “must’ve _really_ pissed him off. So thank you.” At Michael’s look, Mr. Jones laughed. “You still haven’t figured it out, cowboy? Alex and I are connected. When his power rises, so does mine. Been that way since he touched the spaceship piece when he was a kid.”

Michael shook his head, swallowing back the bile in his throat. To think that _his_ Alex was connected to this psycho . . . it was impossible. It wasn’t something Michael ever wanted to consider.

“You’re lying,” he said. “Alex would’ve noticed years ago if he had powers.”

Mr. Jones hummed, stretching his arms over his head. “Not unless I was trapped in a prison using the same spaceship piece that _gave_ him his powers. ‘Til you three busted me out, and that dormant power stopped being so dormant.”

He tilted his head at Alex, his lazy grin widening. “You feel it, too, don’t you? When he touches you, it’s like . . . _love_ –”

“You sick son of a BITCH!” Michael raised his hand to throw Mr. Jones back, but Mr. Jones only squirmed slightly where he stood, dusted his shoulders back, and heaved a laugh.

“You can’t touch me, Michael,” he panted, the yellow pollen and exhaustion of being tied up for so long clearly still in his system. “Not unless you hurt Alex. The spaceship is a life form, and can last longer than _any of us_. It gave Alex his powers, the connection to _me_ , so _he_ is my life source. You follow that, genius?”

Michael saw red. “Take it off him,” he growled. “LET HIM GO!”

“Go?” he scoffed, but something behind his eyes darkened. “Alex doesn’t want to _go_. Do you, Alex?”

“Don’t talk to him,” he seethed, holding a hand out to Alex. “Come on, Alex. We’re leaving.”

“That ain’t gonna work, little brother,” Mr. Jones said. “Alex doesn’t wanna leave with you.”

“SHUT UP!” he snapped. “Alex, take my hand.”

“Your hand’s bandaged,” Alex suddenly said. He was staring at the bandana on Michael’s hand as if it was an offender. As if Alex had reset completely, only conscious when Mr. Jones was here to wake him.

The airman’s closed expression vanished, and he turned away from Michael as if the sight of him disgusted him. He took Mr. Jones’s offered hand and stood.

“A-Alex . . .”

“I want to thank you, Michael,” he said softly, and Michael watched with horror as the colors in his eyes turned from dark brown to the same gold, pink, and purple of the spaceship piece, his veins now vibrant and stretching out like spiderwebs across his skin.

When he turned to look at Michael, the supernatural color of him pierced Michael’s heart. Whoever this was, it wasn’t Alex. It was darker. It was . . . evil.

Dark Alex smiled then, as if amused Michael had pieced it together, and even _glad_ that it was tearing him apart.

“Thank you,” he said, “for breaking him just enough for us.”

“Alex –”

“He fought so hard, too,” Dark Alex said, looking down at his hands with mild interest. He lifted his gaze at Michael, the biggest loss Alex had suffered. “But I don’t want him to have your love. He’s too good for that.”

Michael tried to take a step closer to him. It was his Alex; his face, his voice . . . but his tone, his eyes, his cruelty – it wasn’t Alex at all.

“L-Let him go,” he pleaded. “Please, let him go. Take the power, take _my_ powers, just let him go.”

“After everything he was denied?” Dark Alex said. “After _everything_ he did, only to be treated like a second choice? After being lied to, mistrusted, _abandoned_? No. If Alex couldn’t have your love, I’ll cut your heart out and give it to him.”

Mr. Jones put an arm around Alex’s waist and held him tightly against him. He pressed his nose to Alex’s hair, inhaling his scent, with some sort of sick relief.

“No,” Michael breathed. “NO! YOU’RE NOT TAKING HIM!”

Michael tried to use his powers, but hurting Mr. Jones meant hurting Alex. And whether or not these were his words, it was still _Alex_ he’d be attacking. In the end, he couldn’t do it.

“We’ll be seein’ you, little brother,” Mr. Jones smiled. “Me and Alex both.”

“Gear up, Michael,” Dark Alex said, nothing but hatred in the glow of his eyes; in the spaceship piece that Michael had always associated with home, and the one that was now taking his home away. “Because this time, I’m in charge.”

Michael opened his mouth to argue, to scream, to _beg_ , but he blinked, and Mr. Jones and Alex vanished.

He stared at the place where Alex had been only seconds ago. His Alex, confused and afraid and having lost to the anger that he’d been warning Michael against for days. Michael fell to his knees, thinking of the Alex who’d chosen Mr. Jones instead, whose eyes glowed with a threatening light. But Michael wasn’t scared for himself. He was scared for Alex.

The bunker door suddenly opened, and Max ran in, followed by Liz and Isobel. “Michael, Mr. Jones got out!”

“H-His chains were glowing,” Isobel stammered, “like – like the spaceship piece, they were just glowing!”

“Who let him out?” Liz demanded, then looked around. “Where’s Alex? Did you find him?”

“They took him,” Michael muttered, feeling like he was watching the whole scene play out from high over their heads. “He’s gone.” He looked up into his brother’s dark, concerned eyes. “Alex is gone.”


	3. Liar

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to sleep for 1000 years.  
> If you enjoyed reading at all, please comment and share, it always makes the world of a difference 🖤

Kyle looked around the destroyed bunker, eyes wide and mouth hanging open.

He looked back at Michael and the rest of their disheartened group, and gaped, “I was only gone for three days!”

“So when you think about it,” Isobel said dully, “this is really _your_ fault.”

Kyle did not look amused. Neither did Gregory or Flint.

“I knew we should’ve just told him the truth,” Gregory said, putting his head in his hands. “I’m such an idiot.”

“No,” Michael said. “I’m the idiot.” He was idly tugging at his bandana with his other hand, staring at the opposite wall where Alex had been standing with Mr. Jones before he’d disappeared. _No_ , he reminded himself. _Not Alex. Something dark, something sinister, something_ hurt _. . . but not Alex._

“No one blames you, Michael,” Isobel said.

“I do,” Flint said. “I blame you.”

Liz glared. “Is now really the time for that?”

“I should’ve known about Alex the second he was arrested,” Flint argued.

“What would you have done?” Gregory countered. “What would you have said? Alex was getting angrier and angrier, you really think _you_ were the best person to calm him down?”

“ _I_ wouldn’t have gone along with a stupid plan that just made everything worse,” Flint said. “None of you stopped for one second to think of what might happen if he couldn’t take it anymore. And now some psycho’s got him.”

“Flint Manes,” Maria said, “I swear –”

“He’s right,” Michael said through grit teeth.

“Michael,” Max tried, “you couldn’t have known –”

“Alex thought he was going crazy because of me,” Michael cut him off edgily. “I thought it was something he could handle for a few days, but I didn’t think that Mr. Jones could’ve been making things worse from his end. Alex’s anger was never anything he could control, it was eating away at him from the inside like an infection from that stupid spaceship . . . and I didn’t even notice.”

“None of us did,” Gregory said. “Guerin, we’re his _brothers_ , and we didn’t know.”

“ _I’m_ different!” he snapped, and the rest of the bunker went silent. Michael slumped back against the wall, hugging his knees to his chest as he’d seen Alex do. When he’d been hiding. That was how afraid he’d been. And Michael had left him all alone.

“Sorry,” he murmured, and felt a strong hand on his shoulder.

Max sat down beside him. “We’ll get him back,” he assured him. “We just need a new plan.”

“A new plan,” Kyle sighed. He picked up a burnt file and tossed it away. “Awesome. Do we even know where Alex is?” Nobody said anything, and Kyle’s shoulders fell. “Right. I forgot. The only person who would know where to find Alex . . . is Alex.”

Michael sighed into his palms. It was time to push away the heartache and fear consuming every inch of his body, and _think_. He thought of the simple possibility of calling Alex and seeing what would happen, though he had no idea what to say and doubted Alex would pick up at all. Did he even have his phone?

Then a thought occurred and he looked up. “We need someone Alex still trusts to talk to him.”

“You really think he’d answer?” Liz asked.

“When Alex’s eyes . . . changed,” Michael swallowed back the vile in his throat, “it was like someone or _something_ else had taken over his body. He said he . . . he didn’t want Alex to have me. That he was too good for me.”

“Well,” Flint muttered, “we agree on one thing.” Maria glared and Gregory pinched the bridge of his nose.

“My point is,” Michael said, subdued, “it’s like someone’s trying to protect Alex from me. From _us_. But there’s one person who didn’t lie to him, _one_ person who has a better chance of getting close than any of us.”

“Great,” Kyle said, pulling out his phone. “I’ll call Forrest right now.”

Michael snatched the phone away from him much more quickly and much more roughly than he’d meant to. “I’m not talking about him,” he growled.

Kyle shook his head. “Then who does Alex trust the most?” Everyone turned to look at him, and he blinked, blushing. “Oh.”

*

Alex watched the dark clouds pass behind his fingers. He was lying on his back on the desert ground, his hand outstretched towards the sky and fingers splayed, the veins on his arms and hands bright and colorful and _pulsing_ , like there was something constantly beating to life under his own skin, getting stronger and stronger by the second.

_You can’t have me,_ part of him, a very _small_ part, weakly defied. _I won’t let you._

“Shh,” Alex said calmly, the sound like a rush of waves, crashing into the shore. Soothing, but dark in nature. “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”

“Alex still givin’ you trouble?” Mr. Jones said from where he stood, kneeling next to a pile of sand.

Alex looked up at him, eyes flashing. “I _am_ Alex.” He sat up. “And it’s only been a few hours. I’m looking after myself.” He smirked bitterly. “I don’t do it often, it’s an adjustment.”

Mr. Jones raised a brow at him over his shoulder. Alex noticed he’d been watching him closely ever since they’d left the bunker.

He stood, dusting off his black jeans. “What?”

“You just,” he shrugged a shoulder, “look good.” His grin widened to something hungrier. “I like the change.”

Alex had abandoned the flannel for a dark button shirt that looked more like a vest, the top and bottom two buttons undone, revealing his chest hair and bellybutton, and he wore a black leather jacket. His hair was sleeked back with a few messy strands, a consequence of the constant stormy winds and rain. If not for the purple, gold, and pink eyes, and the veins spreading out like a mask and down his body, Alex might’ve just looked like he had gotten a new style.

“I needed a change,” Alex said. “And kindly take your eyes off me.”

“No,” he said, way too happy with himself as he raked Alex’s body up and down, biting his lower lip. He shook his head. “I couldn’t believe it when you walked into those caves two months ago. I knew you were pretty, but . . . _wow_.”

Alex turned away from him. “Let’s get one thing straight here. I’m doing this to make everyone that ever hurt me _suffer_.”

He exhaled shakily. “Is it weird that that turns me on even more?”

“What’re you even doing?” Alex asked. “Digging a hole _before_ we have anyone to drag into it?”

“I, my beautiful starlight –”

“Don’t call me that –”

“—am looking for an old friend.”

“Old friend?” Mr. Jones patted the spot next to him suggestively, and Alex sat down. Mr. Jones seemed pleased.

“You ever wonder why Michael’s spaceship was never finished? Why he could never find every single piece?”

Alex’s brows furrowed. “You’re saying _you_ have pieces hidden away?”

“Did it before I was caught and trapped down below,” he said with a shadow over his eyes, as if remembering being captured. Alex pursed his lips. Part of him, a very small part, wondered if he should take Mr. Jones’s hand, to comfort him. But the bigger part of him found it ridiculous. Trusting his heart to anyone was a bad idea. He’d learned that the hard way.

“So now we can finally put the pieces together,” he concluded, and a voice whispered, _The pieces want to be together._ Alex’s eye twitched and he forced the memory down. It hadn’t meant anything. Nothing Michael said to him ever meant _anything_.

Mr. Jones, clearly having not heard Alex’s thoughts, nodded. He smiled at Alex as if proud of him. “It’s not just a spaceship, Manes. It’s an _energy_ field. It can summon the force of ten galaxies if we want it to, and then it’s just a matter of using it to destroy whatever we want. Starting with this town.”

Alex tilted his head. “And everyone in it.”

Mr. Jones snaked an arm around his waist and pulled him in. He smiled widely, his breath fanning Alex’s lips. “Roswell’s your home,” he said. “You can burn it down with your own hands, baby.”

Alex felt Mr. Jones’s heart pick up pace, his grip on Alex tightening as if wanting to feel more of him, his fingers reaching under the hem of Alex’s jacket, his shirt. He was desperate to touch, so eager. It was pathetic. Didn’t he realize that love was a lie? That none of it mattered?

He put a hand on Mr. Jones’s chest and stood. “And where are the other pieces?”

Mr. Jones didn’t look put out or resigned that Alex refused him, only excited as he stood to follow. “Don’t know,” he said distractedly, his hooded eyes following Alex’s lips, his body leaning in close as if he’d forgotten his whole plan and could only think of touching Alex now. “My power’s still weak after being in the caves, I need another week or two to recharge. Unless . . .”

He was reaching for Alex’s hips again, but Alex still had military training in his blood, and he grabbed Mr. Jones’s wrist and held him still. “ _Unless_?”

Mr. Jones tilted his head at Alex. “Unless we work together.”

“What else have we been doing?”

“I mean combine our forces,” he said, and his voice quieted. “Get closer.”

Alex’s shoulders slumped. He was just about to tell Mr. Jones to knock off the jokes, to get serious, to focus or Alex was going to test his new powers and blast him across the desert. Then his phone buzzed in his pocket.

Alex and Mr. Jones blinked, and Alex pulled it out to find a text on the screen.

“You still have that thing?” Mr. Jones scoffed.

But Alex wasn’t amused. He’d changed his phone to only respond to one person, because Alex had wanted to know when he’d be back in town.

“It’s Kyle,” he said, the hopeful lilt in his voice evident to his own ears. Mr. Jones frowned, but Alex had already turned away, out of his reach.

The text message asked Alex to meet him in front of the Crashdown. He wanted to talk. _I want to see Kyle_ , that small part of him spoke up again, and this time, Alex couldn’t find it in him to disagree.

“Ignore it!” Mr. Jones said like it was obvious. “You know it’s just a trap!”

“It’s not,” Alex insisted. “Kyle wouldn’t do that. I think . . . I’m going to go see him.”

“You can’t!” Mr. Jones snapped. “You – _we_ need to get those pieces back!”

“You said so yourself,” Alex said. “You need time to get your full strength back. And I just want to talk to him.”

Mr. Jones shook his head, huffing a dark chuckle. “This is a mistake, Alex. If you’re going, then so am I.”

“I don’t need you to come,” Alex said as he typed in a response. He wanted to see only Kyle, nobody else. Kyle wouldn’t bring anybody else.

“Can I help it if I want to protect you?” he murmured against Alex’s temple. Alex could feel him inhale, sniffing his hair, his arm tightening around his waist.

Alex put a finger on his chest and pushed him back. Mr. Jones stepped away, his grin widening. He licked his lips. “You can’t resist me forever, _Alex_. I’ve waited for a long time for you. I can wait a little more.”

He turned away, and Alex found his eyes lingering on his shoulder blades, the way his muscles contracted under his shirt. Alex pursed his lips, thoughtful, and turned away. Kyle responded. He and Alex would meet in half an hour.

*

Kyle paced in front of the Crashdown. It had been hours since it had closed, and Michael and the others were somewhere inside, listening through the open call Kyle had in his pocket.

He ran a hand through his hair. He hadn’t felt this nervous about seeing Alex since he’d returned from war after a decade away, and even then, the parade in his honor and Maria and Liz and Michael Guerin and his own military work at the base kept them apart. Then they’d talked and Alex had told him some hard truths he didn’t want to hear, and then . . .

Kyle sighed. Then he’d gotten his best friend back, and they were closer than they’d ever been. _One of the only people I can count on._ And right now, Alex was wandering, alone and lost and afraid. The people he’d counted on had turned their backs on him. Kyle kept thinking back to that day at the hospital.

_“Do you have to go?”_

If he’d known how much Alex had meant it . . .

“Stop groaning,” Isobel’s faint voice came from his pocket, and he rolled his eyes.

“I don’t think you guys are in much position to tell me to do _anything_ ,” he muttered, leaning his head to look over his parked car.

The wind picked up suddenly, dirt swirled around in a small hurricane, kicking up leaves and pebbles. Kyle had to stand against his car to stay steady, and held up a forearm to his eyes, protecting them from the sand. When the wind settled, Kyle brought his arm down and found Alex standing there, all dressed in black under the night sky.

His hair was windswept, he wore a faint trace of black eyeliner, and his eyes . . .

“Oh my God,” Kyle breathed, instinctively reaching out. “What the hell did they do to you?”

Alex huffed a weary chuckle. Kyle was touching his face before he could help himself, his fingers gently trailing down Alex’s jaw, careful not to touch the multi-colored veins stretching out from his glimmering eyes. The colors rippled against each other like watercolors, dashes of green and blue amongst the pink and gold. They were beautiful, but terrifying, like a poisonous stream.

Alex tugged on his wrist and wrapped his arms around Kyle’s shoulders. Kyle felt him heave a sigh like relief against his shoulder, and he held him back. He wondered if Michael knew what they were doing. The ground wasn’t shaking and no invisible force yanked him backwards, so he guessed not.

“It’s good to see you,” Alex said, and it sounded genuine. He pulled back, keeping Kyle at arm’s length.

Kyle shook his head. “You look . . . different.”

Alex hummed, tilting his head. He smiled, but there was none of that shy disbelief that usually came with Alex’s smiles. He looked confident, in a way he never did before. _No_ , Kyle thought. It was more than that. It was the look he’d had in the moments when he’d faced down his dad; like he knew he was the smartest person in the room. It was unsettling, to see that expression on his best friend’s face, with those eyes, aimed at _him_.

“Don’t worry,” Alex said sympathetically. “I’m better now.”

“Better,” Kyle repeated faintly. “No wonder everyone was worried.”

Alex’s smile dimmed, his shoulders slumped. “Which one of them sent you?”

“You know which one,” Kyle said, and Alex looked away, nodding with a purse of his lips. “Alex, Guerin’s losing his mind. I’ve never seen him so scared.”

“ _He’s_ scared?” Alex whipped his head around, the color in his eyes pulsing. “Where was he when I called him in the middle of the night, crying and _begging_ to see him? Getting into fights at the Pony!”

Kyle faltered. “You . . . you really did that?”

“That’s how bad it had gotten, Kyle,” Alex said, and he ran a hand over his face, cooling his features. “That’s how much I needed him, and he wouldn’t help me.”

Kyle swallowed past the fury in his throat. Michael and the others had told him how badly they’d messed up, but to keep lying to Alex when he’d gotten more miserable than before . . . to hurt him this badly . . .

“It was a lie,” he finally said, his voice hoarse. “Alex, it – it was a lie they made up so that you wouldn’t know you had powers.”

Alex frowned. “ _Michael_ told you this?”

Michael, Kyle thought. Not Guerin, but _Michael._ He nodded. “Him and everybody else. Gregory, Liz and Maria, Max and Isobel – Michael didn’t want you to look into your powers because Maria almost died doing the same thing.”

Alex, his eyes wide, huffed a disbelieving laugh, but Kyle went on. “He thought that if he lied and made you think you couldn’t be responsible, you’d be better off.”

“Better off?” Alex shook his head. “He saw what that – that _lie_ was doing to me, why didn’t he stop? Because it didn’t matter, right? He was at least honest with Maria, but he couldn’t bother with me.”

Kyle realized the wind was picking up pace, the clouds getting darker and darker until they were almost completely black. But Alex’s eyes were glowing brighter, like a flame; the hotter and more dangerous it got, the brighter it burned.

“The clouds,” he murmured. “ _You’re_ doing this?”

A hint of a smug smirk tugged on Alex’s lips. “Isn’t it amazing?”

“It’s . . . a lot,” Kyle said. “Alex, doesn’t this scare you?” Alex flinched, the act so miniscule that Kyle almost missed it. “Y-You’re changing the weather and making tornadoes appear out of nowhere – and the bunker –”

“The bunker doesn’t matter,” he said, his eyes narrowed, hurt. “You asked if I was scared, and I _was,_ Kyle. That’s why I begged Michael for help, why I begged Greg, I begged them _all_. Now I’m this.”

“Hey, look at me,” Kyle said, keeping his voice calm as he took Alex’s face in his hands. The airman’s eyes fluttered as Kyle’s thumb brushed his cheek, and his heart broke. “You’re Alex,” he said. “A piece of glass from space doesn’t control you, you control it.”

Alex’s brows twitched as he seemed to consider the words. He took Kyle’s wrists and brought his hands down. “I’m tired of keeping control, Kyle. Don’t you get that? I’m tired of trying so hard, just to end up alone.”

Kyle clenched his jaw. “And Mr. Jones? He’s good company?”

Alex looked away. “We have an understanding.”

“Max told me about the way he looked at you,” Kyle warned. “Alex, I think he has more than an understanding in mind.”

“I don’t care,” Alex huffed an incredulous laugh. “And what if I did sleep with him, what difference would it make?”

Kyle flinched. “You don’t mean that. You love Michael.”

Something behind Alex’s eyes flickered, like someone whose vision had cleared for just a split second. For that brief moment, Kyle had hope. Then Alex’s smile faded and his eyes turned dark, and Kyle’s heart fell back down.

“Yeah,” he said. “I did. And look what happened.” He shook his head. “Michael will be sorry for the way he treated me, the way he _saw_ me. They all will.”

Kyle didn’t want to ask, but he could feel his friends’ anticipation at the Crashdown behind him. He could feel the anger and hatred coming off Alex. Anger and hatred that felt foreign. Kyle had known angry Alex before, but this seemed . . . darker.

“What’re you planning, Alex? What is Mr. Jones trying to do?”

Alex looked hesitant. “I won’t let anything happen to you,” he promised.

“That’s not good enough,” Kyle said. “You know it’s not. _What is he planning?_ Is he going to hurt innocent people? Is that really what you want?”

The flicker came again, and Alex’s brows pinched together for the briefest moment. “I . . .” he trailed off, then turned his head to the side, eyes narrowed like he was listening to something. “What is that?”

Kyle looked around curiously before he realized a faint static coming from his pocket. Alex’s eyes turned to him, and before Kyle could stop him, he held his hand out, and Kyle’s phone shot out of his pocket into the airman’s hand. Isobel’s name flashed on the screen as the call kept recording.

His colorful eyes on Kyle spoke off nothing but barely contained fury as he said into the phone, his voice quiet, “It’s not polite to eavesdrop, Michael.”

“Alex –” Kyle barely managed before Alex flicked his wrist, and the Crashdown doors blasted apart, barely hanging off the hinges.

“Come out!” he commanded. “All of you! NOW!”

For a moment, nothing happened, then Alex laughed darkly. “Fine. You want to do it that way?” He held up a hand, like Max did when he brought lightning down from the sky to destroy something, and Kyle knew he had no choice. He slipped the serum of yellow pollen from his sleeve and jabbed the needle into Alex’s arm.

“AH!” he screamed, coming down to one knee. He glared up at Kyle with wide, hateful eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Kyle said, pained, pulling a pair of Max’s handcuffs from his back pocket. “I really am, but this is for your own good, Alex.”

“Enough,” Alex muttered under his breath. Then – “ENOUGH!”

Kyle flew back several feet, the handcuffs falling from his hand and disappearing somewhere in the dark night. Alex pushed himself up, and tore the needle from his arm. He flicked it aside like it was a pesky bee, and turned his glare on Kyle. The pollen hadn’t affected him.

“My own good,” he panted as he came closer to Kyle’s lying form. “I’m doing it because I love you. It’ll make you stronger. It’s all for you. Excuses, excuses, _excuses_!” He stood in front of Kyle. “None of you see, none of you _try_ to see!”

He held up his palm in front of Kyle, but Kyle held his gaze. This was Alex. He _knew_ Alex, and as dark as he’d gone, he’d never hurt him. Alex stared him down for what felt like several long minutes. Kyle was tempted to look in the direction of the Crashdown, but the doors seemed to be locked now. Alex wasn’t going to let anybody interfere.

Finally, Kyle’s friend lowered his hand, his bright eyes and veins pulsing with color. He was breathing heavily. “Because you’re Alex’s friend, I’ll spare you. _This_ time.” He turned away. “But you’ll pay for that stunt with the rest of them. Whether Alex wants you to or not.”

Once again, the wind picked up, and Kyle was forced to close his eyes. When it settled again and he looked up, Alex was gone.

Somewhere off to the side, he could hear people running towards him, Alex’s hold on the Crashdown doors released. Isobel was the first to fall at his side. Michael glanced to make sure he was okay, but his attention, as well as Greg and Flint’s, seemed otherwise taken with finding any trace of where Alex had gone. Liz was at his other side.

“Are you okay?” Liz asked.

“Are you hurt anywhere?” Isobel demanded.

“Damn it,” Flint kicked a pebble across the road. “He just vanished!”

“How?” Gregory commanded. “ _You_ guys can’t do that, how does he?”

Max picked Kyle’s phone up off the ground and handed it to him. “And why didn’t the serum work? It should’ve at least weakened him.”

“Well, it didn’t,” Kyle breathed, sitting up with Isobel’s help. He held onto her arm. “It hurt, but he got right back up.” He huffed a humorless chuckle. “Very on par with a Manes Man.”

“This isn’t good,” Flint said darkly. “If the pollen won’t work on Alex, then what will?”

“That’s _not_ Alex,” Michael said fiercely. He was still staring at the wide stretch of black road, as if waiting for Alex to come back and run into his arms. “That thing . . . that could never be Alex.”

“Well, it thinks it is,” Gregory said. “Our brother is possessed, whether we like it or not, so what are we going to do?”

“He and Mr. Jones are planning something,” Max said. “If we don’t stop them, they’ll hurt innocent people.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Flint demanded, a tick in his jaw. “If you think we’re going to hurt Alex –”

“I wouldn’t hurt Alex,” Max cut him off with a glare, glancing at Michael’s back. Kyle had the feeling he’d left out the words, _He’s Michael’s everything; I wouldn’t lay a finger on him_. “But we will have to figure out a way to stop them.”

“Max is right,” Michael said, turning back around to face them. His eyes were distant, like his thoughts were a million miles away, and he couldn’t really see them. “If we let them go through with this, Alex will never forgive himself.”

Liz shook her head. “So if the serum didn’t work . . .”

“Then what’s the plan?” Isobel asked.

Kyle watched the way Michael scrunched his nose, the way the corner of his lips pinch tightly at the corner, the way his fingers twitched like he was itching to hold Alex’s hand, to feel him against him. He’d never seen the cowboy so distressed for _anyone_ like this before. He’d never thought it was possible.

“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” Michael finally said. “We think like Alex.”

“Oh God,” Flint groaned. “I know what that means.”

“Hit the books,” Gregory sighed.

“Do some military-level hacking,” Liz agreed.

“Get smart,” Michael said. “We’ve got a lot of research to do.”

*

“Monsters,” Alex muttered under his breath, pacing back and forth across the desert floor. “They even roped _Kyle_ into it. And my brothers!”

“Don’t forget Liz and Maria!” Mr. Jones chimed in from where he was shoveling into the dirt.

Alex curled his lips in disgust. “Those two don’t surprise me. I knew he came because of Michael, but I thought that once he saw what he’d done, once he _knew_ –” he cut himself off with a frustrated scream, and the earth around him cracked.

Mr. Jones stuck his shovel in the ground and leaned his elbow against the handle. He smirked. “Now ain’t _that_ interesting.”

“How could he?” Alex demanded. “How could he listen to them instead of me?”

Mr. Jones hummed, jumping up onto the edge of the hole he’d dug, and leaning on his palms. “Simple. You’re weak. Not to _me_ , of course.” He held his hands innocently to his chest. “ _I_ think you’re a sexy badass. But _them_? They thought the doctor _alone_ was all it took to bring you down. That’s how they see you, Alex. An inconvenient mess they need to quickly clean up.”

Alex clenched his jaw. Somewhere at the very back of his mind, a voice argued that that wasn’t true, that it couldn’t be. But Kyle had tried to keep him down. They really thought one guy would be enough, that Alex’s problem with them was so trivial, so unimportant, that a single stab from a needle would end it?

He shook his head. “They don’t get it. After everything, they _still_ don’t get it. They thought they could end this with some yellow pollen –” he huffed a hysterical laugh. “They really don’t see me at all.”

“They don’t care to,” Mr. Jones told him, dusting off his hands. He stood in front of Alex, hands hovering above his hips. Mr. Jones raked Alex’s body with dark eyes and licked his lips. “Not like I do.”

Alex narrowed his eyes, but let Mr. Jones grab him. He was rough, and smelled like the earth, and despite the sweat on his brow, he was cold. _Not like Michael’s warmth_ –

Alex clenched his jaw, shutting his eyes tight against the thought. _Alex, Alex, Alex_ , he silently warned. _You have to stay quiet._ He turned away just as Mr. Jones leaned in, his lips pressing to Alex’s cheek. Alex tilted Mr. Jones’s head up with a finger under his chin.

“Just find the damn pieces,” he said. “I want this town to come down, and I want Michael and _everyone_ who turned their backs on me to see it fall.”

Mr. Jones groaned, aroused, bending his knees to flutter his dark eyes at Alex. “ _Baby_ –”

“Don’t,” Alex smiled sweetly, “get too familiar.”

Mr. Jones smirked, and wrapped an arm around Alex’s waist, pulling their bodies flush together.

“You and I are _part_ of each other, Alex. The same spaceship piece that gave you your powers came from _my_ pod.” He leaned in close to Alex’s ear and whispered, “You’re mine, baby. And I’m yours. _All_ yours.”

Alex wasn’t surprised. Unlike Michael, Mr. Jones was too predictable to startle him. Where Michael fluctuated between merciful and cruel whenever he felt like it, Mr. Jones had one drive; _want_. He wanted to destroy his twin, wanted to watch the aliens that had gone free and lived lives to watch their home burn as he had been without one for so long. And he wanted Alex.

Whatever the reason; power, need, or just lust, Alex didn’t know, and didn’t care. He was free now to do and touch whoever he wanted, without the constraints of having a ridiculous and unnecessary loyalty to Michael Guerin.

_Still . . ._

Alex took Mr. Jones’s wrists and brought his hands down. As he did, his body instinctively arched into Mr. Jones’s, and despite the years of captivity, Max’s twin’s chest was strong, his stomach flat. Alex could feel his quickening breaths, the way his wrists tightened and strained under Alex’s fingers, like he was dying to hold him. But Alex didn’t need to be held, not anymore. He didn’t need anybody.

_I’m here_ , he reminded the fighting voice inside his heart, the one that was still trying to kick this new power out. _You don’t need anybody else, Alex._

“Back to work,” he said. “If I know Michael, and I do, he’ll be working on a way to find us right now.” He pulled his phone out of his back pocket, the only connection he’d had to his friends, his family. The people who hadn’t stopped for one second to think what their betrayal would do to him. Who never did.

He shook his head, and scoffed under his breath. “And _I’m_ the monster?”

Without waiting for a response, Alex closed his fist, and the phone came apart like twigs in his hand, the pieces falling through his fingers.

“They can’t win,” he said darkly. “Understand?” Mr. Jones’s smile widened. “Not again.”

*

“What about near the caves?”

“No, he’d been locked there for decades, he wouldn’t go back.”

“What about the pods?”

“He knows we’d be watching there. He wouldn’t take that chance.”

As the others conversed on where they thought Mr. Jones might’ve gone, Michael sat in Alex’s usual chair in the mostly destroyed Project Shepherd bunker, tracing the edge of the photograph in his hands. It wasn’t the one he’d kept of himself and Alex as teenagers. No, that one was stored safely in his airstream with his other valuable, irreplaceable things. This was a newer one, one Isobel had managed to get when she’d been trying out her new polaroid, secret and all the more precious for its rarity. One she’d seen Michael eyeballing and silently handed over with nothing more than a smirk.

He hadn’t even pretended he didn’t want it, and though it had been months, Michael felt naked without it in his pocket.

“I’m coming to get you,” he whispered to the man in the picture. The man who now sat somewhere under the weight of all that dark energy, screaming for someone to save him for once.

“Maybe Alex decided to take them back to his place?” someone, Maria, said, and Michael’s head snapped up. “Set up shop in the ruins?”

“That’s not Alex,” he said fiercely, and everyone looked to him. He pocketed the picture, and stood. “Don’t talk about them like they’re working together, they’re _not_. Alex is Alex, that _thing_ is controlling him.”

Maria sighed. “That doesn’t change much right now, Michael.”

“It changes everything,” he said, and typed a few keys on the computer before turning it around to show the others. There was a steady beeping as the green radar surveyed the area. “The day we found Mr. Jones, Alex enhanced the search feature on his scanners to find anyone with the slightest trace of irregular body heat. Someone has so much as a _fever_ , this thing will find them. And we already run hot.”

He swallowed, Alex’s words from over a year ago now echoing in his head, his cute smile as he’d tilted his head and waited for a better reaction from Michael than the one he’d gotten.

Gregory pinched the bridge of his nose. “Alex also had us look through the databases for any reports of strange incidents for months.”

“But we had Mr. Jones trapped,” Max said, brows furrowed. “Why would he go through the trouble?”

“Because he didn’t think Mr. Jones being tied to a chair in a cave would be enough to keep him down,” Kyle said. “No offense. He was smart.”

“Maybe a little too smart,” Flint said thoughtfully. “He must’ve known something was going to happen.” He scoffed, flipping a file over. It had been filled with call logs and strange weather reports around town, clearly read through more than once. “I always thought I was doing Alex a favor by staying away. Good looking out, guys.”

Michael glared. “We’re gonna get him back. _I’m_ gonna get him back –”

“ _You’re_ the reason that storm outside won’t stop,” Flint snapped.

“Flint –” Gregory started, but Flint was already waving him off.

“I’m going back to check the databases again,” he said. “Maybe I can find a trail on them there. Meanwhile, try not to piss them off. Alex is a danger to his enemies _without_ these new powers, and right now, _we’re_ the enemy.”

With that daunting reminder, he left, the sound of the door echoing throughout the bunker. Michael clenched his jaw, and pulled out his phone, dialing Alex’s name. It went straight to voicemail.

“Any luck?” Liz quietly asked as Isobel looked disappointedly over Michael’s screen.

“He’s not answering,” he said, and swallowed roughly. “He either turned his phone off or turned it to dust. Either way, he won’t come just because we want him to anymore.”

Liz rubbed her face, sitting down on the edge of a table. “This is so weird,” she said. “I spent ten years never needing his help, but . . . to know he’s not home, just waiting with the answers . . .”

“Yeah,” Maria said. “It’s different.”

“It’s _wrong_ ,” Kyle said. “Which is why we have to think logically, like he would, and figure this out. That pollen didn’t do more than sting him. Why?”

“He’s too strong for it,” Michael deduced. “He gets his powers from the spaceship piece, and it’s just pure energy.”

“So we need something stronger,” Max said, and looked to Liz. “Is that even possible?”

Liz sighed, standing. “We’re going to have to find out.”

“Oh, joy,” Isobel said dryly. “More reading.”

Liz nodded once. “Every book on aliens we can find. And herbology research would help, too.”

“I’ll ask mom about the pollen,” Maria offered. “She might know something that can help.”

“I’ll go back and help Flint with the database search,” Gregory said.

“And I’ll keep an eye on sheriff reports,” Max said. “See if anybody called in a tall guy that looks exactly like me. If I’m not arrested the second I walk in, we’re in the clear.”

“And you?” Kyle raised a brow at Michael, grabbing his jacket. “What’re you gonna do?”

There was an echo of Alex in Kyle’s gaze, but where Alex was filled with stubborn concern, Kyle looked more loyally concerned, like he knew Alex would never forgive him if he didn’t check in on Michael and make sure he was doing okay. The thought forced Michael to look away.

“I need to check on the spaceship pieces in the bunker,” he said, reaching for his hat. “Mr. Jones will come get them at some point, and I . . . I have to be ready.”

“You shouldn’t be doing something like that on your own,” Max warned.

“I’ll be fine,” he said, and walked out past Kyle, past his brother, past Gregory, past the worry he didn’t deserve and the guilt eating away at his bones.

Michael knew he should’ve been thinking of his own assembled spaceship, his plan, but as he rolled around in bed that night, all he could think of was Alex. Was he still eating? Sleeping? Keeping off his leg? Did his new powers even need him to do any of that? He reached for his phone and tried Alex’s number one more time. And again, he got his voicemail right away.

_Hey, it’s Alex. You know what to do._

Michael clenched his jaw, his eyes burning. He dialed Alex’s number again and again and again, if only to hear the airman’s familiar voice in his ears through the rain hitting the airstream walls roughly. As hard as he tried to push it away, the image of Alex’s eyes changing color, of his veins turning that same purple and gold and orange, haunted him, and he turned his face into the pillow, holding the phone tightly against his ear.

“I’ll get you back,” he whispered, his voice cracking despite himself. “I’ll save you this time.”

Michael woke to shuffling outside his airstream. He groaned, turning his face deeper into the pillow. His phone was ice-cold against his cheek and the corner of a polaroid dug into his lower lip. Michael’s eyes fell shut again as he grabbed the photo and pressed it to his chest, his body curling around it.

He couldn’t remember falling asleep, couldn’t remember the moment in his thoughts when he’d drifted off. “Alex . . .” he murmured, imagining the airman pressed against his chest as the picture was now. That’s what he’d been thinking of; Alex. Alex’s smile, his warmth, his laugh, the way he nuzzled Michael’s jaw to wake him up, pressing faint kisses to Michael’s neck.

Those moments together had been rare and always followed by misery, by a word or a dismissal Michael never meant to make, by a fear Alex clearly didn’t want but haunted him, nonetheless. And then he’d dated Forrest and so much of that fear had gone away. Michael knew it had been for him, all that fighting and trying and pushing past his nightmares until he finally broke through them. His Alex, never anybody else’s, just _his_.

The shuffling came again, and Michael shut his eyes tight against the noise. The junkyard wasn’t open yet, and Michael didn’t plan to make any exceptions.

Then the earth trembled and he bolted up in bed. “What the hell –”

He managed just before he heard a frustrated growl, and he froze. Even furious, he knew that voice. He scrambled out of bed, stuffing Alex’s picture in his pocket before he swung the door open and stumbled out to find –

“Alex,” he breathed, and there Alex stood, in the same black clothes he’d worn last night. His hair didn’t stick out in messy strands anymore, but was styled back perfectly. The worst part were his eyes. Around the black pupils, the dark brown that sometimes turned to deep hazel in the light was now replaced with swirls of purple and orange and pink, his veins as they spread across his face and hands the same color. He looked like someone else, and Michael hated it.

Alex gave him a humorless smirk. “Michael. I’d hoped that the next time I saw you, you were burning alive, but this –” he gestured in the direction of the sealed bunker door “—complicates things a bit.”

Michael just glanced at the bunker, unable to keep his eyes off Alex long. “You want to get into the bunker? What for?”

Alex scoffed, his smirk falling to something much darker. “Because you’re a liar, Michael, you always have been. You told me the spaceship piece is with Liz, but I know you still have it.”

Michael blinked, stepping back before he realized he was moving further away from Alex and took a step closer instead. Alex didn’t move, glaring as if ready to fight if he had to. Now Michael remembered. As much as he wished this was Alex, that he was just messing around, he knew it wasn’t. Alex would never try to scare him, Alex would never stare at Michael as if he was a threat or an oncoming attack.

Michael clenched his jaw. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Why can’t I get into the bunker?” Alex demanded. “The door’s never been closed to me before.”

“And it never will be,” he said simply. “ _Alex_ is always allowed in. _You’re_ not.”

He tilted his head, chuckling in disbelief. “Always allowed in, huh? Sorry, I must’ve missed that reassurance when you told me over and over again, for over a _year_ , just how little you wanted me near you.”

Michael flinched, but Alex wasn’t done.

“When I helped you find out more about your mom, when I confessed that I had kept that damn piece in the first place because I didn’t want you to go, when I _talked Maria_ into being with you because . . .” he scoffed, “because you were just so wonderful, and who _wouldn’t_ want you?”

Alex shook his head. “And where did that loyalty get me?” He inhaled sharply. “Let me into the bunker.”

Michael opened his mouth and closed it, the lump in his throat making it impossible to speak. When he finally managed it, his voice was steadier and quieter than he’d expected it to be.

“No.”

Alex smiled a little, but there was nothing kind or similar to his usual kindness about it. He ran a hand through his hair, and Michael swallowed, remembering the way Alex used to do it right as he smiled shyly or before he said something smart. This Alex only looked like he was keeping something evil back, and didn’t really care whether or not it got out.

In a flash, Alex had Michael pinned to the airstream, slamming him roughly against it, knocking the wind out of his chest. He coughed, clutching Alex’s jacket, trying to find his vanilla scent. There it was, faint and almost gone, but still there. His Alex was still somewhere there.

“Let. Me. In,” Alex said slowly into the space between their mouths.

Michael tried to speak, his voice hoarse, “Give him back to me.”

Alex pulled him away from the airstream and slammed him into it again. “Listen to me, you son of a bitch. I could kill you right now with a flick of my wrist. The _only_ reason you are still alive is because I want you to die after watching everyone you care about burn away to ash.”

Michael clenched his jaw and reached around to grab Alex’s wrists.

“I don’t know why – why you want the pieces,” he managed, “and I don’t care. Just give Alex back.”

“I _am_ Alex!”

“No,” he breathed. “You’re not even close. I won’t give you anything –” he broke off coughing “—that you can use to hurt anyone. Alex would rather die than see that.”

For a split second, Michael thought he saw something behind Alex’s eyes flicker, a momentary pinch of his brows, but it was gone before he could blink, replaced instead with a look of cool understanding.

“I forgot,” he said. “There’s only one way you ever listen to Alex, isn’t there?”

Michael frowned. “What are you – what are you talking about –” His words cut off as Alex took Michael’s hands and put them on his own hips. He reached down for Michael’s belt. Michael gasped. “What are you –”

“This is when you’ll do what I want, right?” Alex said darkly, putting a rough hand through Michael’s curls and yanking his head in, crashing their mouths together.

Michael tried to stop it, but a moan escaped his lips. It had been too long since he’d felt Alex’s touch, his warmth, since he’d _tasted_ him. Alex pulled Michael’s hips in against his own, letting Michael’s cock hump his. Whatever force was inside Alex now couldn’t control the way his body reacted to Michael’s, how it _always_ reacted to Michael’s.

Michael should’ve turned away, but Alex had a tight grip on him and was thrusting their hips together, urging Michael to get hard. Michael tried to press their foreheads together, but Alex wouldn’t allow it, moving down to kiss and lick and bite Michael’s neck instead.

Michael tried to say something other than grunts as his cock turned harder and harder and harder. He heard small moans escape Alex’s own lips as he used one hand to raise Michael’s shirt, the other to push his pants down.

His cock was almost exposed when Alex murmured into his skin, “Open the bunker door, baby,” he breathed, and licked up Michael’s arm. He brought his lips to the shell of Michael’s ear. “Open it for me.”

And Michael may have been an idiot, but he would’ve done it. He would’ve done anything Alex asked. That was the problem.

“I can’t,” he breathed and, before Alex could bring his pants down, grabbed the airman by the arms and held him still. He growled. “Because you’re not Alex.”

Alex’s eyes weren’t hazed, he didn’t look half as dizzy as Michael felt. Maybe that was why, when Alex made something float into his hand, Michael didn’t notice what it was.

“Okay,” Alex breathed heavily. “ _Okay._ Let’s try a different approach.”

Michael smirked, just about to tell him to go to hell, when he felt something sharp and hot in his side. With wide eyes, he looked down and saw that Alex had stabbed him – Alex had _stabbed_ him – with a jagged and rusted piece of metal from a long-destroyed bumper.

There was a furious satisfaction in Alex’s eyes, the color bright and pulsing and a little hysterical. Michael felt blood leak down his wound and into his jeans. Alex seemed proud of that.

“If you won’t give it to me,” he smiled, “then I’ll go ask Liz. Since she _is_ supposed to have it.” He tilted his head, the move too mechanical and cold to be real. “Right?”

He stepped back, but Michael couldn’t move. He was pinned to the airstream by an invisible wall, unable to stop Alex or help himself.

Alex walked slowly backwards, his eyes on Michael’s injury. “That’s going to need tending to. _If_ Liz survives, and I wouldn’t get my hopes up ‘cause I’m kind of on a roll right now, maybe she can help.”

Michael grit his teeth, banging his head back roughly against the airstream before he screamed out, “Okay, OKAY!” Alex stopped, his smile widening like he knew exactly how to hurt Michael and was all the happier for it.

Michael took a jagged breath. Despite the early cold of the morning, he was beginning to sweat. It didn’t matter. What mattered was that Alex had stabbed him. That was how deeply this thing had its claws in him. All Michael could think of was how miserable his airman would be if he remembered any of this.

“The p-pollen may not be enough to put you down,” he tried, “b-but I – I used it on the locks. The walls. You can’t penetrate it with your powers, only by key. And I have it.”

“I don’t care how you did it!” he snapped, and held out his hand. “Give me the key.”

Michael clenched his jaw, and nudged his chin roughly at his own pocket.

Alex’s shoulders slumped, an eyebrow raised. “You’re kidding.”

When Michael said nothing, Alex closed the distance between them again, but there was nothing of desire this time. Without taking care for his injury, Alex harshly reached into his pocket and yanked out two things. The first was a small key, fit for the lock on the steel door to the bunker. The second was the polaroid.

“Not that,” Michael demanded, panic building in his chest. He tried to fight against his invisible restraints, the metal digging deeper into his side, but he didn’t care. “NOT THAT!”

Alex blinked when he turned the picture over and saw himself. It was the airman, sitting in a booth at the Crashdown. Michael remembered the scene perfectly. He and Isobel had sat across him, waiting for their food as Alex stared out the window, his chin on his palm, Isobel tinkering with her camera. Alex had realized that she was trying to take a picture of him, and he’d laughed. Isobel had caught the moment perfectly.

“Take the key,” he croaked. “Take it, please, just give me back the picture. It’s all I have of him.”

But it was like Alex couldn’t hear him. He stared at the photograph with slightly knitted brows, his expression betraying just a little surprise and nothing else. Michael caught another flicker of change in his eyes, something shifting just behind the color, and Alex’s eye twitched, like something was fighting its way through to the surface and he was trying to keep it back. _His Alex._

Then Alex did something Michael hadn’t expected. His hand turned to a fist and a flame started between his fingers.

“No,” he shook. “NO!”

But it was too late. The photo caught fire and turned to ash, crumbling away in the wind. Alex met Michael’s gaze, his own surprisingly furious.

“After everything you did to me,” he said quietly, “everything you said to my face . . . a damn picture in your pocket means _nothing_. You understand?”

Without waiting for Michael’s response, Alex walked over to the bunker’s entrance and unlocked the seal. He held a flat palm over the ladder, the multi-colored veins on his hands and fingers like spiderwebs. There was some shuffling, and Michael’s spaceship pieces, everything he’d worked so hard to collect over the years, came rising up. Alex let the half-finished ship sit on the ground in front of him, looking it over.

Finally, he scoffed. “I told you before, didn’t I, Michael? You’re a miserable liar.”

“Alex –” Michael tried, but before he could say anything, to beg Alex to fight for them, to promise him that he was going to save him no matter what, the wind picked up and sand and earth and clouds swirled around, and Alex was gone.

The invisible force on Michael’s body vanished, and he fell to his knees, his hand on the metal sticking out of his side. He reached shakily into his back pocket, pulling out his phone.

His hand, covered in blood, trembled as he called Max. His eyes burned, and as the line picked up and he heard his brother’s voice calling his name, a tear fell and a sob escaped his lips.

“Help me.”

**Author's Note:**

> [my tumblr](https://pastelwitchling.tumblr.com/)   
>  [my twitter](https://twitter.com/rinblackmare)   
>  [my ig](https://www.instagram.com/rinblackmare/?hl=en)


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